The Dusk Descending
by l-dhenson
Summary: Devastation like nothing seen before has struck New York. For Jack and his boys, there is only one thing left to do: Survive. Crossover with Reign of Fire.
1. I

_Title: The Dusk Descending_

_Author: ldhenson_

_Summary: Devastation like nothing seen before has struck New York. Now Jack and his boys must fight for their very survival._

_Notes: I started working on this story a couple of months ago, back in late July, but wanted to wait until I had a good idea of where it was going before I started to post. The story stands at sixteen chapters so far, with more on the way. I will put up further chapters as I continue to fine-tune them._

* * *

He ran.

Racetrack was to his left; Kid Blink to his right. Like him, they ran in grim silence, broken only by the rasp of harsh breathing and the scrape and thud of boots against uneven pavement.

The same sounds came from behind them—multiple pairs of pounding feet, drawing closer. There was no shouting, either from the pursuers or the pursued. He counted lampposts in his head, watched Petersen's ruined storefront flash by to his right out of the corner of his eye. Overhead, the sky was deep blue and amber, and blessedly clear.

Race hissed under his breath, "Jack—I'se beat—"

"Almost there."

"There's...four of 'em—"

"One block." He closed his fingers a little more tightly around the packet in his hand, his grip sweat-slick against the waxed paper. Three against four; not bad odds really, but the sun was setting fast and there were no benefits to a well-matched fight. Lungs beginning to burn, he pushed himself onward.

A chunk of stone smacked into the pavement at his left heel. Instinctively, he and Race sprang apart; just as instinctively, he reached out with his free hand and snagged the shorter boy's shoulder before they drifted too far away from each other.

As one, the three of them swerved to their right around the next corner. It put the sunset behind them, throwing long shadows out in front, like runner's lanes marked on the cobblestones, though running down the center of the street was strictly out of the question. Blink ducked another thrown rock, his shoulder jostling against Jack's chest. Jack levered him back upright with a forearm.

One stumble and it'd be over. Blink slapped his palm against the remains of the brick wall to his other side, quickly regained his footing.

The old tenement block loomed into sight. Jack glanced up at the empty sky, then the three of them abruptly stopped hugging the right side of the street and darted across it instead, heading for the far corner.

"Sampson!" Jack panted as loudly as he dared. "Sampson!" Behind them, he could hear the footsteps break stride at the sudden sound of his voice.

From the interior of a burnt-out streetcar that lay directly in their path, another three boys sprang out. One wielded a heavy, jagged plank of wood; the other two had slingshots aimed and ready. Jack and his companions swept past them, halted and wheeled to face their pursuers.

Now it was six against four.

The boys who'd been chasing them staggered back, re-assessing their chances. One still clutched a rock, but he paused with it only half-raised.

Race took a step forward, catching their gazes, then meaningfully flicked his eyes to the sky.

They hesitated, traded glances. Jack could practically hear their thoughts. _How long'll this take? And can we still get back in time?_ They shuffled one step back, then two—then turned and sprinted back the way they'd come. The one with the rock threw it anyway, not to strike, but to deter; the two boys in front with slingshots neatly sidestepped it, and by the time they recovered their aim, the erstwhile pursuers were already halfway down the block.

"Thanks, guys," Jack said, keeping his voice low. He shook damp hair out of his eyes, only realizing then that he hadn't yet let go of Race. He did so, leaving Race to smooth out his crumpled sleeve with an air of mock offense, then held out his hand to the boy with the wooden plank.

Skittery lowered his makeshift club and returned Jack's handshake. "'S been quiet, Jack. You'se prob'ly the last ones."

"We'll give you twenty." He pushed Skittery in the direction of Blink and Race, tossed Blink the packet he'd been clutching. "Go."

Jack watched the three of them take off, staying as deep within the rapidly-growing shadows as they could. He nodded to the two remaining boys: Chopper and Toms, both of them good shots. They returned his nod. He'd seen them eyeing the packet with curiosity, but they didn't ask, busying themselves with scanning the sky and streets around them instead.

_...Eighteen, nineteen, twenty._ He took a deep breath, gestured to them, and then it was back to more running. Two blocks and following the el tracks from beneath and threading through an alley, different directions each time. Until, pressed up against the side of the remains of the Postal Telegraph, they peered out across the street at the scorched, wide area that had once been City Hall Park. In the distance beyond City Hall itself rose the _World _Building, its golden dome crushed like an eggshell.

This was the most dangerous part to run: Broadway and the park were vast and open, although the broken vehicles, smashed masonry from the surrounding edifices, and sorry attempts at provisional shelters—long since abandoned—provided some cover here and there. Jack tipped his head back to the sky and held his breath, listening hard.

Nothing.

He jerked his head at the park and the other two took off towards it, himself following close behind. Crossing the expanse of Broadway, weaving from one pile of rubble to another, they made for the carcass of a large carriage lying almost completely upended just within the scorched lawn beyond the sidewalk. They vaulted the low cast-iron fence and Jack dropped flat, easing himself partway through the small opening between the carriage's frame and the ground, blinking in the sudden darkness. "Sampson," he hissed.

"That you, Jack?"

"Yeah."

Sound of a double-barrelled shotgun uncocking. A dim light flared from below as the lantern was uncovered, casting stripes of brightness on the inside of the carriage.

"Anyone else?" Jack asked.

"You'se the last ones."

He backed out as the grating was pushed up silently on well-oiled hinges. He ushered the other two into the carriage and the ventilation shaft, then climbed in himself.

"Lock," someone whispered, and there was a rustle of movement down the line of boys in the shaft. Jack held out his hand, and the metal padlock was pressed into it. He looped it around the edge of the grating, paused as he did every night.

"Key?" he said.

"Me. Snoddy."

"Right." He snapped the lock shut, yanked on it several times to test. It held. "Go."

Inside, the passageway quickly narrowed until it was only wide enough for one body at a time, so they moved crouching down the sloping shaft single-file. A very tiny bit of daylight filtered in through the metal bars behind him, but it was fading fast, and soon the only light that made it through came from the lantern at the head of the line, blocked and blocked again by the forms of the boys ahead of him. He kept one hand on Chopper's back as they went along.

It took them, ironically enough, partway back across Broadway, opposite the direction in which they'd just run over the surface. There was a slight pause as they reached and collected the next small cluster of guards at the end of the shaft, then they all continued through, more light drifting back to Jack as boys exited the shaft and he got closer to the main tunnel.

He hopped down onto the stacked crates that served as steps leading from the ceiling entrance of the shaft. Descending, he touched bottom in the tunnel proper. This was theirs, their modest kingdom: a circular tube, straight and faced with whitewashed bricks for about a block's length, until it began to curve sideways in a gentle "L" shape for the last eighty-odd paces at the north end; there the walls were iron-plated. The floor was ridged with a set of rusting tracks, bricks laid between. A single dilapidated wooden car sat just beyond the shaft's opening, tucked up against the tunnel's south end. Once an experimental subway before most of the boys had even been born, now it was home sweet home.

As living quarters went, it was by no means either fancy or spacious, as the tunnel was no more than eight feet wide. Still, it was solid and dry, roughly two dozen feet underground, and virtually inaccessible save for the ventilation shaft—and that was so narrow that anyone trying to break in would have a devil of a time trying to mount an attack lined up in single file.

Most important—it was fire-proof.


	2. II

Behind him, boys were "closing the door"—putting one more crate atop the stack and sliding a wide brass panel salvaged from some fancy building between it and the ceiling to block the mouth of the shaft. Snoddy was conscientiously setting the padlock key beside the stack, in the little niche created by a missing half-brick.

Jack closed his eyes just for a moment, partly to savor the blessed subterranean coolness after the dusty exhaustion of the chase, partly to let his vision readjust. The light down here, not that it could properly be called bright, was nonetheless stronger than it had been in the ventilator, although a hundred and forty feet of darkness still separated them from the the north half of the tunnel where they'd made their home. It was obvious the tunnel had been at one time gas-lit: a couple of thin pipes for gas and steam ran down its length, though they were empty now. Resources were scarce and any accidental fire down here would be deadly, but too much darkness meant night terrors and boys too groggy and careless from lack of sleep; so they had compromised, and allowed three kerosene lanterns and four candles in glass jars scattered over the length of half a block, set carefully on flat bricks and cinderblocks and away from anything combustible.

Many of the boys were already clustered around one of the crates which served as a table, set where the brick walls abruptly changed to iron. There were a number of parcels piled on it; Jack saw that the packet he'd given to Blink had been added to the top.

"Hey, Jack!" It was Mush calling to him, not loudly as he—as any of them—would have done in the old days, but still at something close to normal speaking volume. After all, they were fairly deep underground, and reasonably safe here. "Where'd you find this?"

"Up around Fifty-Seventh." There were murmurs from around the room. It meant a hike of nearly four miles; might as well be forty, these days. Jack forestalled the questions with an upraised hand. "I don't want none of yous going 'til we sit down and plan it out. There ain't much there, and we almost didn't make it back."

"Race said you got chased."

"Thought I recognized one of 'em," Skittery spoke up, while Jack glanced about the room and did a mental headcount despite himself. "One of the Hoffman House guys."

...four sorting out the store of weapons: clubs and slingshots, brass knuckles and their tiny cache of firearms. Twenty-one others scattered throughout, mostly by the crates. He stepped to one side to better see beyond the tunnel's curve. Another five huddled among the blankets, piled at the far end where the tunnel ended, away from the lamps...

"You sure?" Race said.

"Didn't you see?"

"Too busy runnin'."

"They'se far outta their territory," Specs put in.

Race ran a hand through his dark hair, absently rubbing at the long knife scar that trailed from behind his left ear. "So were we."

...Thirty-one. Thirty-one was all that was left of them; and even then, six of the boys in here right now had not originally been one of their own.

Jack nodded to Dutchy and Race, who quickly began tearing into the packets and bags, cutting up the contents where needed, doling out the food the boys had managed to scrounge for the day. There wasn't much: stale crackers with the mold (mostly) scraped off; a small cache of nuts; two little baskets of withered green apples that Bailey, Dutchy, and Mush, beaming with pleasure, announced that they'd found in a cellar; and the packet Jack's group had brought back, containing dried beef. Another group had seen to it that the bottles and canteens had been filled from the pipes, and those were now being passed around.

He watched the boys claim their meager share of food; watched to make sure that a few took extra for those still on the blankets. As the last of the boys drifted away, some in clusters, some on their own, Race beckoned him over with a jerk of his head.

"I saved half the beef, like you said. And half the apples. They'se up on the shelf."

He slapped the other boy lightly on the shoulder. "Thanks, Race."

Race pushed a double portion over to him. "Go. Sit. You been runnin' more'n the most of us."

Someone tapped his arm. He turned to see Snitch, mouth half-full of beef. "Yeah, Snitch?"

"He..." the boy swallowed his mouthful, lowered his voice. "He ain't been eating again." He looked a little nervous, as though he were betraying a confidence. "Nothin' all day. I just thought you oughta know."

"Yeah." He moved away from them to squint into the darkness where the blankets were, searching for one silhouette wedged against the tunnel's walls. Returning, he traded a glance with Race, nudged Snitch in wordless thanks. "Yeah, okay."

Scooping up the small supper, he carried it over there, stepping past boys hungrily devouring their food. He crouched down before the silent figure, holding out a quarter-apple. "Hey."

David stared back at him, eyes hollow. He didn't respond, nor did he make a move to take the food.

Jack waved it a little. "C'mon. How often we get apples, huh?" David's gaze barely flickered. "Aw, I know it's a little dry, but it ain't so bad. Still green, even. Look."

He lifted David's hand, found a relatively clean patch on his own sleeve and wiped David's fingers on it, then closed his fingers around the wedge of fruit. David held onto it, more by reflex than by intent, but that was a start. Jack took a seat beside him. Laying out a small piece of waxed paper on the blanket between them, he piled the rest of their food on the makeshift plate.

He broke off a chunk of thick cracker, wrapped a thin strip of meat around it. With his first bite, the taste of the salty beef exploded on his tongue, reminding him just how hungry he was, how long it had been since he'd swiped a handful of nuts for breakfast just after dawn. His stomach rumbled as he did his best not to wolf down the rest of it, eating slowly instead, careful to catch every crumb.

Another glance at David told him the boy hadn't moved, was merely holding the apple listlessly. "C'mon, Davey." He refrained from trying to nudge a response from him—he'd learned the hard way that a little harmless shove was more than likely to make David simply let go of whatever he was holding. "Mush found 'em first, you know? You don't wanna make him feel bad that you ain't eatin' 'em, do ya? You know how Mush is." Cupping his hand beneath David's, he pushed it gently upward. He got halfway there before David pushed back, irritation and resistance sparking in his eyes.

That was better. It was something. Jack let up immediately, and after another moment, David completed the movement, taking a small bite of the fruit.

"Jack." Boots tossed him a canteen before going back to his own supper.

Jack shook it; a little more than half-full. "Another bite, Dave." David gave him something that was nearly a glare, but he did comply, eventually. Jack handed him the canteen, waited, and then took it back when David only gave a small shake of his head. "Yes, you do," Jack told him. He lifted the spout to David's lips, not above trapping his head against the iron wall behind him. "I'm tippin' it up, so drink it or wear it."

He made good on it, but did so carefully, watching David's throat to make sure he swallowed. When he figured David had drunk a reasonable amount, he let up, and took a drink himself. The water was flat but cool, and he had to check himself before he could gulp it all. They had a relatively convenient source, and they stored as much as possible down here, but fresh water was a precious commodity, and they could never have too much of it. On one or two days, it had been all they had.

He set about smashing almonds with a chunk of brick, noting out of the corner of his eye that the other boy was slowly finishing off the piece of apple. Picking out the largest bits of kernel, he set them in David's palm. David made to drop them atop the pile of remaining food, but Jack shook his head sharply. "No. Go on."

Blue eyes narrowed at him again, but David did not protest, and even, after another minute or two, took up a small strip of beef to chew on. Jack polished off his share and gently bullied his friend into doing likewise, though David seemed unable to choke down the last half-piece of cracker, even with the rest of the water from the canteen. Jack let it go for tonight. He hadn't had time this morning to see that David had gotten anything down—and apparently he hadn't—but this would do, for now. He wrapped the leftover piece in the waxed paper and got up to add it to one of the cast-iron pots placed high on the "shelf" they'd made with stacked crates, where they stored the bulk of their provisions. They'd had no problem with rats in the tunnel so far, and he wasn't about to start now.

He waited in line to rinse his hands in the bucket—it would be thrown out during the morning's ablutions—and brought back a scrap of damp rag for David.

Around him, most of the boys were starting to nod off. There was a general migration towards the sleeping end of the tunnel. Some boys preferred the far end beyond the tunnel's bend, where it suddenly ended in a reassuringly blank and solid-sounding cement wall. Some preferred sleeping closer to the lights instead; a few, like Jack—and he liked to think that David maybe accommodated him in this, never moving too far back into the tunnel—simply felt better just at the elbow of the curve, where one could keep an eye on both sides. Several boys still lingered in the lit part; he could see Blink and Bumlets engaged in animatedly telling some story, with Skittery, Race, and Mush in various stages of drowsy attendance. Specs, Bailey, and Digger extinguished all the lanterns, added another candle, and posted themselves just at the at the edge of the dark, ready for the night's first watch. The almost-perpetual sound of whetstone scraping against metal that had paused during the meal started up again.

When he returned to his spot, David still hadn't moved, his gaze still unfocused. Despite his apparent apathy, Jack knew he didn't sit idle all day; he'd spent it repairing and splicing the lengths of rope that the boys had managed to scavenge here and there. Rope was a necessity for hauling items, for lowering yourself into ruined sub-basements or climbing into the guts of second- and third-stories (there was rarely a need to go much higher), for defense, for fixing things. There was never enough to go around, or it wasn't strong enough, or long enough, and so David's ability to work with them had proved invaluable. Some of the younger boys, whom Jack had forbidden to go on the more dangerous scavenging raids, stayed in and learned from him. Oh, he didn't really _teach _them, they'd said. But they could watch him, and pick up the simpler techniques.

Jack reached over and picked up his right hand again, then the other, peering at the fingertips closely in the dim candlelight. David could work his fingers until they bled and never seem to care, or even notice. Calluses and even faint scars had already sprung up, but today there were only mild blisters among them. Satisfied, Jack handed him the dampened rag.

He pulled the knife in its sheath from his belt and set it within easy reach, next to the small metal box where David kept his fids and needle and twine, and nudged David's shoulder. "Tired?"

David's only response was to lie down and curl up, facing away from him. Jack shrugged and tossed a ragged wool blanket over him before wrapping himself in another. The iron walls offered good protection here, but they were damned cold.

Around him, the small band of survivors settled in for another long night.


	3. III

The sound that woke him was faint. He was not even sure if he'd heard it, but he knew better than to dismiss anything his senses told him. Three out of four times it could be nothing, but the fourth time might be everything.

There it was again. A low wordless sound from beside him. He propped himself up on an elbow, leaned over David's shoulder.

Nearby, someone else stirred. "Jack?" he heard Ten-Pin whisper.

"Shh. Just a bad dream, I think. Go back t'sleep."

The small boy obeyed, but David's head jerked back, almost striking Jack's elbow. "Ma...oh, Ma...I'm so..."

He could see David's eyes were still closed. He laid a hand on one wool-covered shoulder, shook it lightly. "Davey. Hey, Davey. 'S alright."

David only tossed his head again, one hand reaching out, fingers closing on nothing. Jack glanced behind himself, spotted Bumlets among the ones on watch; that meant it was sometime between two and five a.m. "Go back t'sleep, Dave." He touched the damp brow, was relieved to find no fever. "Easy, easy. Go t'sleep."

David's fingers scraped against the chipped brick floor, hard enough to break skin. Jack reached across him and caught his wrist before he could draw blood. Twisting against his grip, David gasped, "Let me go—let me go, I've got to go and find—"

Jack saw the glint of tears start out from under his lids. He shook him hard, once, then dropped to avoid the blow as David abruptly reversed his struggles and lashed out backhanded at him. "Dave!"

He felt the instant that David came awake, going from fight to absolute stillness in the space of a breath. He leaned over David's shoulder again, saw that the blue eyes were open now, staring straight ahead. Jack cautiously let go of his wrist.

"Dave?"

There was no response, nor did he really expect one.

"It's..." He swallowed. _It's safe here,_ he wanted to say, but he knew that wasn't the root of it. "It's all right. Go t'sleep, huh?"

No answer, no movement. He reached over, laying his palm over David's eyes. He waited more than a full minute until he felt the downward brush of eyelashes before pulling away, then wrapped his arm around David's waist, hoping he'd relax enough to doze off again.

Hardly anyone else had stirred at the commotion, not even those on watch. Routine, Jack thought, or something like it.


	4. IV

Most of the younger boys were still asleep at this early hour, but half a dozen of the older ones were clustered around what was referred to as "The Office"—two metal boxes with a sheet of metal laid across it, forming a crude desk. It was one of the few tabletops on which lanterns were allowed to be placed; they had two other upended metal bins, but those were smaller. The wooden crates which served as their other tables posed too great a risk of fire.

One of the few intact maps they'd found, the east edge singed off, was spread out over it. As usual, Dutchy was seated on a low box in front of the tattered page, the others crouched or kneeling beside him; to everyone's pleased surprise, he'd proved to have a good head for maps, for spotting patterns and movements. All of them had carried mental diagrams of the city for years; you couldn't sell a decent pape or find a meal or cross a part of town safely without knowing exactly where you were going. But the landscape changed so quickly these days, and the alliances and hazards with it, and they'd had to resort to paper maps to keep track of it all.

"We gotta start today," Jack said quietly. "It's practic'ly October."

October, and with it a new threat: the coming of winter.

Summer had fled all too quickly. When they'd first come here, at the start of the season, winter had seemed an eternity away. Day-to-day survival had been paramount then; long-term planning had been unthinkable, even impossible, like a heavy burden no one had had the stamina to pick up. If Jack were willing to admit it to himself, he'd say that a small, deep part of him had not truly expected to live long enough to see the winter. Not after Europe, not after Russia...

Three months. Three months ago, he'd had a roof over his head, and meals which, if not quite regular, at least were more or less probable. He'd had a job which, even if it often seemed as though it were headed nowhere, at least had some prospects if he played his cards right. At least had some chance of a future.

He'd had that. They'd all had.

No more. How strange to think that it was now barely one year since their triumph over Pulitzer and the _World_. What a fight it had been, to bring down the giants of the city. At times, it had seemed like nothing could possibly accomplish it; not without the street fights, the narrow escapes, the monumental task of uniting hundreds and thousands, the betrayals.

Who knew that all they really had to do was wait a few months, and it would have all come crashing down, farther than they could ever have wanted to imagine?

Dutchy swept a bit of dust off the map, and Jack turned his attention back to it. The abandoned subway tunnel they occupied was comfortably cool in summer, but they'd have to find a way to heat it in winter.

If it were just himself, Jack thought, if it were just himself and maybe a handful of the older boys, he might say to hell with heating it up. He'd slept in worse; for that matter, so had pretty much all of them, at one time or another. Nights spent in emptied packing-boxes or in doorways or over a street-vent, sometimes buried beneath a thin layer of straw. At least down here they'd be out of the direct reach of wind and snow. That ought to have been luxury enough. But he couldn't do it; couldn't open his mouth and ask these thirty boys to huddle here shivering for the entire dark length of winter with death hovering just outside their door; couldn't keep his mouth shut and simply let the ice steal up on them while the weeks crept on. Maybe he'd just gone soft, spoiled by the comforts of the Lodging House, with its good walls and running water and cotton sheets.

But maybe, just maybe, it meant something, too, to try to improve what little bit of life and shelter they had now. And none of them, in the few discussions they'd had so far over the "hows" of the matter, had ever tried to challenge the "why."

"I still say we try it," Skittery spoke up. "Just once."

"It" was the obvious plan: moving their quarters to the other end of the tunnel, close to the shaft and using it—naturally—for ventilation when they built fires for warmth.

"A small one, just to try," Specs added. He was standing behind Dutchy, hands working knots from the blond's shoulders. "We can see where the smoke goes. We keep it small, it can't hurt."

"We talked about this before," Jack said. He dabbed absently at the small nick on his chin, a fresh souvenir from that morning's bout with the razor. "Even if it works, that just gets us through...what? November? Then what?"

"If we keep the snow clear—" Skittery protested.

"Work in shifts." Specs again. "Keep an eye on things up top—"

Blink leaned forward. "Yous guys forgettin' the winter before last? Ain't no keeping up with that."

They remembered, of course. They all remembered. The great blizzard of February '99 had practically buried the entire East Coast for days. And the _start _of that winter...

It hadn't been long after the first snowstorm that season that the very block of buildings they were currently under had burned in terrific fashion. The whole lot of them had forgone sleep and poured out of the Lodging House to watch it with their own eyes, along with the massive crowds of spectators that had jammed the streets. It had been a real sight, flames shooting high into the night sky despite the huge winds and driving rain. Reporters staying late in their offices had had a great view of it. Papes had sold like hotcakes for days.

The collapsed Rogers, Peet building had been rebuilt after; they'd watched its construction every day, easily visible from the Square, growing again from the ground up to eight stories over the course of a year. Its grand re-opening, on the twenty-first of February, had been a triumph.

Four months later—three months ago—it had burned again, and this time, there would be no one left to put it back up.

It went without saying. Fire and destruction went without saying.

"We got another month before snow, we'll deal with it then," Skittery said. "Buy us some time."

"Single chimney's too dangerous, Skitts." Jack drummed his fingers on the desk. "It's our only way in and out. What'se we gonna do if we need to get out in a hurry and it's fulla smoke? Or if we need to get in?"

Race shook his head. "Sooner we find a new place, the better. Ain't none of us wants to try movin' in in the cold."

"Someone might get there 'fore us," Dutchy said.

This gave them all pause. It was too true. Competition for space was fierce; habitable places were scarce, and getting scarcer every day.

Jack opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, a thunderous boom shook the tunnel from above. Straight from somnolent stillness boys sprang up, some of the younger ones crying out, grabbing onto each other.

"It's them!" Ten-Pin's voice rose above the rest, high-pitched and thin. "It's the dragons!"

* * *

_Author's Notes: If you've followed the fic this far, you've probably guessed by now: this fic borrows the premise, though not the characters or the storyline, from _Reign of Fire _(bonus points to FlatOutCrazy for guessing it). As this fic is set in 1900, there will naturally be no appearances from the characters of RoF._

_Jack is not Quinn, so this will not replicate Quinn's story._

_The premise of RoF's particular breed of dragons and the destruction they bring remains intact. For a sleeping creature thousands of years old, what's one century more...or less?_


	5. V

There were some distinct disadvantages to being a newsie: the cold, the heat, the rain; the jacked-up prices, the low returns; the wondering if you were going to get to eat that day, or if you were going to wind up sleeping in the streets.

Then there was the fact that you knew the headlines inside and out, day after day. There was no getting away from it, not if you wanted to sell. The names, the places...the numbers. It was enough to keep you awake, some nights.

It had started in England.

* * *

In Rosebridge Colliery, near Liverpool, near Wigan, to be exact. Not that anyone had realized the significance of Rosebridge at the time. It was thought to be an isolated incident—terrible, to be sure, but not a harbinger. Not an omen.

At two thousand, four hundred and forty-eight feet, or perhaps only two thousand, four hundred and forty-five, depending on which paper you read, Rosebridge was the deepest mineshaft on the globe. A marvel of engineering, yes, but no one had thought much about it beyond that. Wigan was full of mineshafts, roughly a thousand of them within five miles of the center of town. What was one more, even if it were the farthest man had ever tunneled into the bedrock of the world?

On March fourth of this year, a massive explosion and fireball had ripped through the mine in the dead of night. It had taken fifty-one miners with it: nearly half of the mine's workers, and, save for a handful still at the surface, the entire back-shift who were underground at the time. These were the men who worked the mine from ten at night to four in the morning; the disaster had occurred shortly before two-thirty a.m.

In the ensuing chaos, some witnesses reported seeing a huge fiery shape, larger and faster than a locomotive, streaking out of the mineshaft and disappearing into the sky. The papers had carried the fantastic accounts, but no one truly believed them. Were not the men traumatized by the explosion, had not the lights been knocked out, were not the site and the sky pitch-dark?

Besides, what could have been in that shaft and still made it out?

It was written off as a giant plume of escaping material, and the explosion itself as due to a hidden chamber of natural gas. It had satisfied the colliery's owners, Messrs. William and Thomas Latham, who were, after all, sensible businessmen who understood the role of science and reason.

It had only made page five in the _World_—disasters were big news, English coal-mining towns were not; and the production of coal in general had not been unduly interrupted. Despite the lack of front-page status, it had made for snappy pitches and brisk sales, while back at the Lodging House newsies had nonetheless grumbled in newly-awakened indignation and sympathy over the miners' hazardous working conditions.

And then it had been more or less forgotten. Rosebridge had been temporarily shut down, and a wave of safety inspections had rippled through the nearby coalfields; but otherwise, the world moved on.

Seven weeks later, on the twenty-first of April, London had burned.

And that was when they realized that Rosebridge had only been the beginning.

* * *

Later, a few more incidents would come to light. The occasional unexplained night-time fire in a remote English farmstead, here and there during those seven quiet weeks, blamed on the uncommonly dry weather that year. No one could have possibly guessed that the dragons were merely biding their time.

The razing of London flew up and down the telegraph wires, and across the Atlantic on the submarine cables. Americans followed the ongoing story with horrified fascination. Newspapers vied with one another for sensational headlines—if the _World_ and the _Journal_ had been at each other's throats for a year and a half over the war in Cuba, that had been nothing compared to this. In truth they hadn't had to try very hard—newsies barely had to open their mouths to sell, and they went home every night with pockets full of change and bellies full of food.

No one knew for sure what the casualty rate was, as there were few bodies remaining to be found, and at any rate the attacks happened too quickly, one upon another before police and fire crews could be efficiently dispatched. Some papers said four hundred died per day; others said seven hundred.

The second week of the London attack brought with it a slight lifting of spirits as the British military, desperately redirecting its attention from its struggles with the Boers in South Africa, finally started to make some headway against the dragons, driving them half out of London. France, knowing that a narrow body of water was no deterrent to creatures like these, lined up a defense on her side of the Channel.

It was no use. The dragons merely streamed out elsewhere, easily evading land-based and sea-based weapons alike, gatlings and howitzers. Devourers of ash, they fed; they multiplied. The number of dead was now in the tens of thousands, and steadily rising.

No sooner did a newsie step out onto the street with his stack of papers than he was besieged by customers. Soon, you had to go back and pick up more copies of both the morning and evening editions. If you made fewer than four trips to the loading dock a day, you were running behind.

American tourists and ambassadors were ordered home, post-haste. Some even made it. Visitors from Europe were granted an indefinite stay—it was impossible to do otherwise. Teddy Roosevelt ("You Know, Jack's Roosevelt"), in the running for Vice-President alongside McKinley, advocated sending aid to Europe. Salisbury, Balfour, and later Loubet had made appeals. Ships of the U.S. Navy's North Atlantic Squadron were dispatched, sailing into God-knew-what.

France was hit at the start of the third week, then Belgium and the Netherlands. In Germany, the military attempted to literally fight fire with fire with their new _Flammenwerfers_—flamethrowers—only to find that the dragons were essentially resistant to normal flames. Incendiary, acid, and poison missiles were tried, in the hope that even hits in non-vital areas would have some effect, but the bottom line was that the dragons, for all their huge mass, were simply too fast in the air for successful strikes.

Refugees fled by ship to Spain, Africa, Iceland. Until the dragons apparently took notice, targeting vessels with sudden ferocity, immolating battleships and passenger boats alike and sending the population inland once again.

A few merchant and passenger ships made it home to U.S. shores in the first two weeks. The ocean crossing from Europe took an average of eight to ten days; these were the ones who had weighed anchor early. The lack of other arrivals in the following weeks was silent testament to what had befallen those who had waited too long to depart.

The trans-Atlantic telegraph lines began to fail. Western Union's two lines based in Penzance, England, were the first to go, the stations—or at least their operators—destroyed. The six lines based in Ireland went one by one. Newspapers, their overseas reports throttled down to the two operational lines left in France, began to fill their pages with more conjecture than facts, each more outlandish than the next, and the American public snapped them up. Brief afternoon editions started to appear; if you were smart, you got to the loading dock early for those. Rival newsies, too impatient to make the trip back for more papes, began to forcibly take them from the younger carriers. Jack started sending his boys out in groups for their own safety.

It was fact, though, that in the fourth week, Denmark, Switzerland, and Italy were overrun. Dragons were reported as far away as Morocco and Kursk, jumping countries, spreading out over the landmass of Europe and Asia faster than any storm or plague.

It was the last bit of reliable news before the final two lines, owned by the Anglo-American Telegraph and Compagnie Française in their brief monopoly on overseas communications, went down.

America, stunned by the sudden silence from abroad, could only wait, and speculate, and grieve. There was little else to do.

After all, it was half a world away.


	6. VI

Amid the sudden commotion, Jack snatched up the lantern before it could be bounced off the metal desk. "Quiet, alla yous! Pipe down. Do you want 'em to hear?"

It worked: the volume fell almost instantaneously. He noted Racetrack, Specs, and several others moving amongst the younger boys, herding everyone into the iron-clad section of tunnel.

"Anyone out?" Jack called to Blink.

"No. Just at the front door—"

The prolonged shriek of tortured metal against asphalt sounded from up above, sending everyone ducking on instinct. Jack pictured the creature dragging the twisted hulk of a streetcar down Broadway like a cat batting at a toy.

A glance down the length of the tunnel showed nothing but a dim moving light. They had a clear line of sight from here through to the mouth of the shaft, but any true visibilty was easily swallowed up by the hundred and forty feet of intervening darkness. He took one look at Blink's anxious face and grabbed his arm with his free hand. "Bumlets, Skittery, you'se with us!" A huge metallic crash from aboveground—the dragon tipping something over—barely gave Jack and the others pause as they took off towards the faint glow of light at the far end.

They'd gone hardly more than half a dozen steps before they were met by the glow and the three boys carrying it, sprinting from the other direction. Jack huffed in relief at the sight of the guards who'd been posted at the shaft. At least no one had been outside, and so there'd been no guards up at the grating, either. "Everyone okay?"

"Yeah," Snoddy panted. His hands were steady on the Parker shotgun. Blink shouldered his way through to Mush and flung an arm about him, shaking him a little when Mush flashed him a half-grin.

Terrible scraping from overhead: the rasp of the dragon's claws and dragging wingtips as it moved about, the rattling of scales as the heavy, serpentine tail slithered over the ground. The sound seemed to reverberate right through the earth and brickwork and straight into their bones. Something smashed into something else just beyond them in the darkness, but now was not the time to find out. "Back. Now," Jack said, and they turned and made for the quarters, fairly skidding into the suddenly-crowded iron-clad area where the rest of them were crouching.

He and Mush set down their lanterns before joining them. "Wait it out," Snoddy was saying, his calm voice pitched to carry to the entire group. "Wait it out. Everybody sit tight."

Jack picked his way with some difficulty through the huddled figures to where Boots, with Ten-Pin and another young boy named Dime clinging to him, was just pulling back from checking on David. Jack dropped down beside him. In the darkness, it was hard to see David's face, but his skin was clammy to the touch and he seemed to be hardly breathing.

Soft wailing still echoed through the tunnel; there were old traumas that even new terrors could not stifle. He could see Racetrack with two of the kids in his arms, cajoling them to stay quiet.

"Shh," he could hear Dutchy murmuring, somewhere off to his left. "Fizzer, stay here. Puley, don't..."

No older than six, they were two of the youngest that the group had adopted, and the most prone to outright panic during attacks. Jack didn't want to think too deeply about why. They'd been found wandering the streets, spattered with blood not their own, and that had said more than enough.

"Fizzer, stay here—!" Specs lunged and caught the boy's ankle, pulling him back. Fizzer's sobs were quickly muffled as Specs gathered him up.

There was a series of other crashes, the percussion of heavy stone falling, now to their north. Jack took deep breaths, curled his fingers around the back of David's neck; found himself vaguely wishing for a cigarette to settle his nerves, just as quickly banished the thought. He could hear Specs and Dutchy give in and let Puley and Fizzer bury themselves hysterically beneath a mound of blankets.

More silence from above: the dragon waiting, listening. That was what dragons did, or had started doing now that people no longer swarmed the streets, free for the taking: tried to frighten their prey into breaking its cover, or giving itself away. More than once, they'd seen it happen, the beasts following the sounds of panicked screams, ruthlessly digging out their victims.

Not us, Jack thought fiercely.

Razor-sharp tips scraped ground again, the dragon turning a complete circle. Then a long, distinctive sound, both of its massive hindclaws gripping the cobblestones, before it launched itself into the air and away.


	7. VII

"Hey, kid...you'se okay." Kneeling, Jack lifted Puley from the nest of blankets as Dutchy scooped them aside. The small body was drenched with sweat and shaking like a leaf. Beside them, Specs was excavating Fizzer from a similar heap.

He tried to hand Puley to Dutchy, but the kid was having none of it, burying his face into Jack's neck, fists clenched in Jack's shirt.

"Hey..." Jack lightened his tone. "You'se gettin' too big to carry, you know?"

"No!" Chipped nails dug into Jack's shoulders as Puley tightened his grip ferociously. Jack bit back a wince. Dutchy caught it anyway, and reached over to loosen the kid's fingers with what wasn't quite the ease of long practice, but was close enough.

There was a shout as Fizzer slipped from Specs' hold again, tumbling blindly into the backs of several of the older boys. One of them, nerves still on edge from the dragon's appearance, shoved back hard, sending the small boy stumbling into Mush.

"Knock it off, O'Dell," Specs snapped. "Kid's just scared."

"Yeah?" O'Dell growled, starting to rise. Stocky and brown-haired, he was one of the newer members of their group. One look at Fizzer's tear-stained face seemed to stay him, however, and Jack kept an eye on him as he subsided. "Watch where ya go next time, yeah?" he added, not unkindly.

Hefting Puley's weight a little higher on his shoulder, Jack stood and continued to make his way along the tunnel. They'd taken a quick headcount despite the fact that the attack had amounted to nothing more than a bad scare, but sometimes you just had to make the rounds. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mush leading Fizzer over to the wall, pointing to one of the several small pictures tacked to it, distracting the boy with a question.

Aside from these two, no one else seemed particularly distressed now that the immediate danger had passed, not even the other younger ones who'd been so frightened just minutes ago. Street rats and gutter trash they might be, but resilience was in their very core, and Jack was damned proud of them for it.

He stopped next to Bumlets, who was examining the back of Snitch's upper arm. "You all right?" Jack asked.

"Scratched it." Snitch's voice was a little rueful. Clean water, while not plentiful, was a least available; soap was harder to find. He twisted, trying to see the welt, but the angle was awkward.

"Ain't bad," Bumlets pronounced. "Hardly broke skin. I think you'll live."

"Thanks, doc."

"Forget the arm," Jack said breathlessly. "How's the shirt?"

Snitch leaned back. "Lookin' better'n yours, Cowboy."

"That's 'cos you'se still dreaming." Jack stepped away and sank down at his usual spot, letting Puley lean against him. David was more or less as he'd been when Jack had left: pressed up against the wall, the two blankets Jack had wrapped around him now hanging loosely about his shoulders. The shivering had ebbed but not disappeared, the aftermath of too much adrenaline and too much enforced stillness.

Someone had set a small tin cup of water in front of him. It was only half-full, but Jack suspected it was untouched. He picked it up and wedged it against the wall where it wouldn't tip.

"Hey." He tried to catch David's eye, but David was staring past him, gaze focused on something beyond the mere eight feet of the tunnel's width. Jack shifted to sit next to him, clearing the passageway. Reaching out, he took David's left forearm, chafing it with his palms, trying to chase away the last of the shivers and draw David back to the present.

A slight commotion and a barrage of curious questions heralded Snoddy's return from the other end of the tunnel. Jack looked up. "Well?"

"It wasn't nothing down here," Snoddy said, "so me and Chopper went to have a look upstairs. The fence just around the corner's banged up pretty good. He bumped the carriage, too."

"Bad?" Jack asked. The cast-iron fence that ran around the perimeter of the park was no particular concern of theirs, but their entrance grate and drinking-fountain sat just inside it, and the carriage that had been upended over the grate served as both shelter and concealment. It blocked the rain and wind, and hopefully the eyes of any roving bands out there that scoured the streets looking for an easy raid.

"Nah. But we got lucky. If he bashed in the fence just a few feet over, it woulda come down right on us." Snoddy hefted his double-barrelled Parker into a more comfortable position in the crook of his elbow. "One of the boards in the water-hole came down, but it ain't too bad. Once we clear out the sand, we'll be fine."

"What about the carriage?" Mush said.

"'S okay. Just bumped it. Moved it a coupla inches."

They'd gotten lucky on both counts, then. A twisted iron fence or a displaced vehicle could've trapped them all inside, sealing the grating better than any lock. And they simply couldn't afford to lose the water-hole.

"Is he gone?" Ten-Pin piped up. Jack released David's left arm, reached across and took up his right instead. At the movement, David finally seemed to to register his presence, half-turning to look at him. He slumped a little against Jack's shoulder, easing his arm from the older boy's grip. Jack let him go. On his other shoulder, Puley had become a heavy sleeping weight.

"He's gone, all right," Snoddy said. "Not a whiff of fire, neither. Racetrack smoked more'n this boy did."

"Twenty-three skidoo," Boots muttered in Ten-Pin's ear.


	8. VIII

_A Few Words From The Author:_

_(i) I've retroactively changed Snoddy's double-barreled shotgun from a Remington to a Parker. Inconsequential, sure, but humor the temperamental writer who doesn't want to juggle multiple Remingtons in her fic._

_(ii) Here's a big "thank you" to my readers and especially to those who've left feedback. Your support and helpfulness really mean a lot. I'm currently working on Chapter XXII (and fine-tuning the rest), and that's not near the end of it. Those of you asking about a certain Brooklyn resident, hold that thought. I hope you'll all stick around to see how it turns out._

* * *

When the dragons struck New York, it was just after ten p.m. on the twenty-ninth of June.

Inside Miner's Bowery Theatre, it was a bright spring afternoon in El Paso.

Chester the Crooning Cowboy had just finished the first part of his act with a bow and a flourish, much to the audience's general approval. With a few flicks of his wrist, he coiled the lasso up neatly, beaming at the crowd's cheers and applause.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack could see David flip open his father's pocketwatch, grimace slightly, then snap it shut again. Slipping the watch back into his vest, David leaned over to him, shouting to be heard above the din. "I have to go!"

Jack added a piercing whistle to his applause for Chester, who had, in Jack's opinion, just risen to the rank of best rope-trick artist in the West—hell, probably in all of America. The man waved his broad-brimmed hat at him, and David rolled his eyes at Jack's grin. "Aw, Davey..."

Chester was calling for silence, aided by the small band off to one side of the stage who struck up a mournful tune, and David lowered his voice accordingly. "Do you _want_ me to get another lecture from my father? I'm turning into a bad influence on Les, you're a bad influence..."

"Me?"

_"O bury me not on the lone prairie..."_

"Yes, you. Out half the night and who knows what else."

_"These words came low and mournfully..."_

"Wouldn't _you_ wanna know."

_"From the pallid lips of the youth who lay..."_

"I don't."

_"On his dying bed at the close of day..."_

"But you'se gonna miss the next act, and then will you be sorry!"

_"O bury me not on the lone prairie..."_

"Yeah? Who's the next act?"

_"Where the wild coyote will howl o'er me..."_

"Dunno. Ow! What'd ya hit me for?"

_"Where the buffalo roams the prairie sea..."_

David only shook his head, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "'Night, Jack."

_"O bury me not on the lone prairie..."_

"'Night, Mouth."

"Happy birthday, Skittery."

"Thanks, Davey."

"See ya, Mouth."

"G'night, Mouth."

_"It makes no difference, so I've been told...Where the body lies when life grows cold..."_

"Psst! Jack! I heard they sings this song so much out West, they shoots you 'fore you can even open yer yap!"

_"But grant, I pray, one wish to me..."_

"Well, _we's_ ain't out West now, is we? So shut up and lemme listen."

That settled the rest of them down some. Blink had pushed Mush from the row behind Jack into the vacated seat, setting off a little chain of audience-members climbing one seat forward; Jack, meanwhile, could hear David making his way quietly and politely out of the balcony crowd toward the door at the back. The Jacobses had agreed to let Les stay out this late tonight provided he remained at the well-lit Duane Street Lodging House and didn't go with the older boys to Miner's, and that David got him home before ten-thirty. Protestations from Les that he'd been to even Irving Hall before hadn't swayed his parents in the least. Fortunately, a life-or-death marbles competition had started up in the Lodging House just before they left for the show, and Les had been sufficiently distracted.

Over a dozen newsies were up in the balcony tonight. Medda had the rare night off, so they'd forgone the lengthy trek up to Irving and had settled for an easy walk to Miner's instead; the loss of their favorite headliner was a disappointment, but no reason not to go to a show. Skittery's alleged birthday was a good enough excuse. Tomorrow night, it might as well be someone else's.

Absently, Jack calculated the chances of their getting home before midnight, when the doors of the Lodging House would be shut and they'd have to bed down in the streets. This was only the fourth act of an eight-act show (the final act could pretty much be skipped without tears, but if you'd already paid to get in, you might as well get your money's worth), and it'd gotten off to a late start. Still, they'd probably be out of here by eleven-thirty, and downtown Bowery was conveniently near home besides. They'd make it, easy, nothing to worry about. If worst came to worst and the boys were disposed to dawdle, he could probably wheedle Kloppman into letting them in anyway...

Someone in the band hit a wrong note, probably the horn-player. Mush had found an apparently fascinating scrap of paper on the floor and was showing it to Blink. At Jack's other elbow, Race had given up all pretense at interest and was deeply into a game of tossing dice with the two boys—neither of them newsies—next to him.

Chester turned to glare at the band as they went off-key again, but when the players traded perplexed glances with each other, Jack sat up. The note had been flat and wrong, but it hadn't come from them. It wasn't until it sounded again—louder, this time, overlapped by a similar tone—that Jack identifed the source. Church bells.

There was shouting from downstairs. Chester and the band stumbled to a halt, and there was no mistaking it now—church bells up and down the street, clanging more urgently now, joined by others.

Everyone leaped to their feet in a babble of confusion and questions. There was a general push towards the doors, not out of panic, but curiosity.

He'd never heard the bells ring like that, not ever. Not at ten o'clock on a Friday night. The crowd poured through the lobby and out the doors.

Out here, the volume of the bells doubled and tripled, echoing from cobblestones and walls, sounding the alarm again and again. The Bowery's wide roadway was jammed, traffic held at a standstill by the mass of pedestrians. People were streaming out of the nearby theatres and drinking-houses to stand bewildered, shouting questions to each other.

There was no obvious sign of danger, which was the only thing keeping the crowd relatively calm. Most of the boys had stuck together and were now clustered around Jack; Race and Skittery both had a grip on the back of his shirt so that they wouldn't drift too far away. Jack wondered how far David had gotten. It couldn't be much; he'd just left, and the streets were now so blocked he'd be making slow progress, if any. He briefly thought about going after him, but how would you even find anyone in this horde?

The ringing slowly began to die away; first one church-tower, and then another. Shrill, distinctive whistles sounded from the south end of the street, coming closer. Jack stood on tip-toe, tried to see. Three Bulls on horseback were quickly cutting a path through the crowd. They stopped nearly a block away, blew on their silver whistles in repeated blasts, then the one in the lead climbed atop a stalled streetcar, raised a speaking-trumpet to his lips and bellowed for silence.

It took a few moments, but he got it. Everyone leaned forward, straining to hear.

Despite the speaking-trumpet, the policeman's voice was easily swallowed by the width and length of the street. Jack caught a few words here and there. "...Navy has engaged them...shore of Long Island...towards Brooklyn...has ordered...stay inside, find...brick or stone..."

Jack was already swiveling his head, trying to locate the nearest likely shelter.

"...dragons..."

He'd obviously left that word until the end, for no sooner had he pronounced it than a few screams rang out and the shoving began, people trying to flee in different directions. The whistles sounded again, the policemen pushing forward, presumably to repeat their message further up the street, but the crowd was already a sea of motion. Horses hitched to carts and carriages reared in panic and tried to bolt; even the Bulls were having a tough time keeping their own trained mounts under control.

Jack reached out and snagged Mush and Snoddy. "We'se going back!" he shouted to his boys. "Get to the _Sun!_" They weren't far from either Newspaper Row or the Lodging House, and Jack couldn't fathom running in any other direction. Duane Street had its share of wooden buildings; Newspaper Row loomed in his mind's eye like a stony cliff. The _Sun_'s building, at a mere five stories, stood dwarfed by and nestled between the _World_ and the _Tribune_, both of which towered over it at twice its height. Jack had no illusions about the lofty fortress that was the _World_; the tallest were often the first to come down. "You goes into the basement and you waits there! Break in if you hafta! I'se going to the Lodging House and get—"

"No!" Race tightened his grip on Jack's shirt, shook him. "We'se goin' with you! You can't get all the boys out by yourself!"

"But—"

"Jack—"

"Look!" a woman's voice screamed. "Look!"

All eyes jerked upwards, to the south-eastern sky.


	9. IX

When Europe and Asia went silent, the newspapers did not lack for news.

Everywhere, the reverberations were felt. Investors with overseas interests found themselves bankrupt overnight. Luxury stores—Stern Bros., Macy's, and Siegel-Cooper chief among them—stepped up the prices on their imported goods to near-unattainable heights. California's vineyards were in sudden demand as the premier source of fine wines.

American owners of trans-Atlantic steamship lines, particularly the Red Star, saw their fortunes slowly collapse; although they did their best to route their passenger ships elsewhere and, due to the fact that no one felt safe journeying too far from American waters, shifted their focus to shoreline cruises. Foreign liners, unable to return to their home ports, floated uselessly at harbors up and down the coast. Arguments raged over whether homeless ships, like the mighty _Kaiser Wilhelm_ (which, the papers were fond of pointing out, had won Germany the Blue Riband not two years ago), belonged to their captains or could be claimed by the government as abandoned property.

Foreign merchant ships faced the same problems, but for the most part the crews of those vessels managed to hoard their precious merchandise and sell them for outrageously inflated prices. American merchant lines, meanwhile, struggled to overcome the loss of both cargo and resources.

The Immigration Service processed stranded visitors with feverish speed. Richer tourists could afford to stay in the city's hotels; most of the the rest were funneled into the already-crowded Lower East Side to find someplace to live in the immigrant-heavy tenements. Meanwhile, Manhattan's primarily Irish and German immigrant population had plunged deeply into mourning, while the more extreme proponents of American nativism wasted no time noting with barely-veiled glee that at least the wave of immigration had come to a stop.

Hardly a day went by that the papers didn't report the disintegration of a business, or the skyrocket success of an entrepreneur who'd struck it rich by capitalizing on his possession of goods that no one else had, or the suicide of a company-owner who'd lost his entire life's savings. Two young Frenchwomen, beautifully-dressed and suddenly orphaned and homeless, threw themselves in dramatic fashion off the Brooklyn Bridge. The public continued to snap up any new developments. Newsies, grown used to the sudden selling boom, found their earnings only slightly reduced, although sales gradually began to dwindle again as late May and early June wore on and things began to settle into some sort of new routine.

New York, at the cusp of the twentieth century, was stronger now than even she had realized. The huge metropolis wobbled precariously but, despite all that was happening, did not slip as deeply back into the economic depression that she and the remainder of the nation had escaped just three years past.

It did not mean, however, that she was invincible.

Roosevelt and Mayor Van Wyck and Tammany Hall, ostensibly united for once, called for reinforcements; the F.D.N.Y. and N.Y.P.D. were hastily beefed up with new recruits. There was even talk of re-instating the volunteer brigade, but some things worked only so well in theory.

Also filling the news—despite the newspaper rivalry, the boys kept an eye out for Denton's articles, wired to the _Sun_ from his latest assignment in D.C.—was the military, already spread thin by the recent war with Cuba and the ongoing Philippine Insurrection. The Navy was still scrambling to recover from the destruction of the North Atlantic Squadron in Europe. Even worse was the massive loss of troops in the Philippines; some had been pulled back before Asia had fallen, but not nearly enough; and now the War Department and the government fought over how best to distribute the remaining forces. Armed with outdated weapons—the _World_ in particular decried the continued use of the clumsy black-powder Springfield rifles rather than the newer Krag-Jorgensens carried by the regular Army—the National Guard nonetheless prepared itself. Funds for revamped arms were pouring in, but it would take time. The largest hurdle was the lingering sense of disbelief. Over three thousand miles of water distance, broken only by relatively small landmasses like Greenland and Iceland, separated America from the scenes of devastation. Could it happen here? Could it really?

In the City herself, the Astor Battery and the local units of the National Guard—such as Manhattan's Squadron A and Twenty-second Regiment, and Brooklyn's Twenty-third—made ready their men and weaponry. New Yorkers soon became accustomed to the sight of their daily drills in the streets.

U.S. battleships patrolled the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, alert for any signs of attack.

Perhaps, in retrospect, that was a mistake. But no one could have done otherwise.

* * *

"Look!" a woman's voice screamed. "Look!"

All eyes jerked upwards, to the south-eastern sky.

From behind the buildings that lined the Bowery, the hanging cloud cover was suffused with a yellow-orange glow that threw the silhouettes of rooflines into sharp relief. It could have come from the next street over, or perhaps the next, but something told the eye that it was not so simple. It looked much farther away, and yet, somehow, it also looked not quite far enough.

It looked a lot like Brooklyn.

_Spot_, Jack thought numbly. Oh god—Spot and his newsies, they'd probably had no warning at all—

Clutching at arms and wrists and shirts, the boys moved more or less as a group down the street, forcing their way past the frightened mobs. A handcart had tipped over in the roadway, rolling apples and oranges suddenly turning into deadly objects underfoot, sending pedestrians down with startled cries. Jack hauled Skittery back upright before he could slip to his knees. The streetcars were attempting to move again, people trying to jump off while others tried to climb on, and those accidentally pushed onto the tracks pushed back doubly hard. Overhead, the el rumbled past with a sound like thunder.

He spotted an intersection up ahead, a little tributary of relative calm off the river turbulence of the Bowery. "Turn right up ahead! Turn right!"

He shoved and dragged the rest of them towards it, got them around the corner and into a tiny bit of breathing space. People still filled the smaller street, but at least the press of bodies was diminished. His stomach twisted as he did a quick headcount and came up three short.

Go back and look, or keep going before it was too late? Surely the missing boys would catch up with them sooner or later at the Lodging House or the _Sun_...but if they were hurt...

Toms had already let go of Chopper, a step away from diving back into the main thoroughfare. "I'se gotta find—"

Before Jack could open his mouth to send most of the group on ahead, Chopper let out a whoop, waving his arms wildly. He was joined immediately by Blink and Mush, and Jack looked up to see the missing Cork, Flick, and Snitch fighting their way over to them from the opposite curb.

An immense black shadow swept by overhead, with such incredible swiftness that for a second Jack was sure he must have hallucinated it in the confusion of the moment.

"What the hell was _that?_" Racetrack screamed.

Chopper and Toms reached out and yanked the returning three into the side-street. "Go on," Jack hollered, "Go—"

The relief was short-lived as the shadow made another pass, so low that the walls of the buildings around them kept them from seeing the entire shape. It wheeled with a sound like giant canvas sails snapping taut in the wind, turned to their right up the Bowery—

A blast of heat and light like nothing Jack had ever witnessed before roared from around the north corner. Jack didn't even wait to lean out and see what had happened just up the wide street; he shoved his boys onward, resorted to ramming several with his shoulder when they stood there, frozen. Horrified screaming echoed around them, mixed with the _crack_ of burning timber.

"Keep running! Go!" There was no time now for respites. The boys kept moving, down one street and across another, ducking as flames sprang up one narrow alleyway to the left of them. Shouts and clanging preceded the fire-engines that rushed past them; the horses reared and shied, and the engines' bells rang impotently amid the frenzy. How many firemen could they carry, how much water could they pump? Enough to put out the Bowery? Enough to put out Brookyln?

They kept moving, always headed south and west. Jack breathed a silent prayer of thanks that whoever was up front knew where they were going.

It was when they got within four blocks of City Hall that Jack knew his plan would fail.


	10. X

It was when they got within four blocks of City Hall that Jack knew his plan would fail.

It was almost impassable. The huge open area of the Park was bounded on the far side by Broadway—the main thoroughfare of the city, such a hazard to cross in the daytime, though it was generally more manageable at night. But now the church-bells had brought everyone out, and they must have packed even Broadway's imposing width, for the tide of the crowd spilled out even to where the boys were, several streets away. The crush only got worse the closer they drew.

Jack would never be able to take the entire House through it to the safety of Newspaper Row.

Most people were pushing their way east and north—Jack and his boys were going directly against the flow. East and north! Didn't they know? Didn't they know that Brooklyn, the Bowery, were on fire? The group's progress had slowed as they hit the near edge of the sidewalk, but the boys in the lead—whether Dutchy had lost his cap by accident or had taken it off deliberately, Jack could spot his fair hair up front—pushed on grimly anyway. They had to get to Duane. Possibly they were too late already; the boys there would have streamed out onto the streets along with everyone else when the bells had sounded, and perhaps they had already scattered.

Skittery jumped to the side without warning, pushing Jack and Toms along with him. A bicycle shot past just inches from them, then another. Cyclists whizzed along the streets, building up as much speed as they could and counting on pedestrians' own instincts of self-preservation to get out of their way. More often than not, people stepped into their paths out of sheer confusion, and the resulting collision only added to the chaos. Rifle barrels gleamed in the distance, National Guardsmen trying to herd the populace back into some sort of order.

Fresh screams and the snapping of bullets sounded up ahead, and not one but _two_ dragons soared into view above them, wing-spans inconceivably wide, blotting out the sliver of new moon and the too-bright clouds. Electric light and firelight glinted off scales and claws and what might even have been one cold, dark eye. With a flick of their serpentine tails, they vanished beyond the rooftops.

To Jack's horror, they had come from the southwest.

* * *

They saw the smoke and flames long before they got there, but they ran for it anyway. No one blocked their path; despite the fact that three streets intersected here, the corner was almost completely deserted except for them, and it was terribly apparent why.

They skidded to a halt in disbelief. Nothing was left of the Lodging House or the adjoining two buildings but a red pit of fire. Large pieces of charred wood were scattered about the street, as though a giant hand had rooted through the ruins, tossing aside whatever it didn't choose. All seven stories had collapsed; even the words on the very top—"Home for Newsboys" boldly lettered on the once-pale roof, something they'd made a game of climbing just the right buildings to spot—were no longer remotely legible. The blaze was already dying down, more smoke than flame, obviously having burned for some time. Oh god, for how long?

Jack unthinkingly sprang forward, and was almost immediately grabbed from behind. He threw an elbow backwards, heard a grunt and flung himself out of the loosened grip, only to run straight into Mush.

"Jack, no!" Mush cried, seizing his shoulders. "Ain't nothing left in there!" His voice cracked, faltered. "Nothing!"

Jack stared at him for the space of several harsh breaths, then swallowed hard. He turned, momentarily at a loss. Behind him, boys were still clutching at each other; no longer because of any crowd that might separate them, but because they looked like they simply didn't know how to let go. Snitch was helping Snoddy back up to his feet.

Blink and Race were moving swiftly towards a group of figures a short distance away. Jack caught up with them, shock and relief flowing through him at the sight of four of the younger newsies, clad only in their trousers and under-shirts and their faces streaked with tears and soot, gathered around David.

"...are you sure?" David was saying. He was kneeling, hands on Ten-Pin's thin shoulders, looking like he was trying desperately not to shake the kid. "No back door, no other way?"

Ten-Pin could only shake his head.

"Dave?" Jack touched his back, and the rest of the older boys joined them, encircling the younger ones. Blink picked Dime up, and Dutchy and Specs were trying to determine if the other two were hurt.

David lowered his head for a moment. Jack saw his jaw clench before he deliberately relaxed his muscles and let Ten-Pin go. Dutchy quickly scooped up the kid.

"They heard the bells," David said, not getting up. His voice was strained, almost unrecognizable. "Most of them were sleeping, and they got up and went downstairs. These four and Itey were the first ones out the door, and the bells were still ringing when the—when the dragon came. Itey pushed them towards the alley and ran back inside—"

"No," Snitch moaned.

"—to warn—"

"No!"

Mush tried to get hold of Snitch, but he twisted violently away.

"And that's when..." David's voice dropped to a whisper. "That's when."

Jack stared at the wreck of the the Lodging House. It was beginning to smoulder, flakes of ash falling gently. Impossible to think that that twisted, blackened—_flattened_—heap could have once contained so much life.

Impossible. Over a hundred faces in that House, over a hundred souls. The image blurred, and for a moment he thought he'd forgotten how to even breathe.

David shuddered convulsively beneath his hand, and Jack wanted to say something, anything, but the words wouldn't come.

Cork's head snapped up. "Didja hear that?"

"What?"

"I heard it too," Toms said. He and Cork scrambled towards a darkened shopfront just beyond the burnt buldings.

Then Jack heard it as well—a high-pitched sound, like a muffled cry of fear—

"Hey!" Cork shouted.

The rest of them hurried over just in time to see Cork and Toms draw three more young boys out of the deeply recessed doorway. They, too, seemed upright and unhurt. Cork pulled the cap off one of them—

"Les!" David lunged forward and swept up his younger brother, burying his face in the boy's hair. "Oh god—Les—"

Jack reached out to pat the kid on the back, needing some tangible proof that he really was alive and well, but he stopped himself just before doing so. _Family_ Jack might call them, but there was a time and a place for everything. This reunion was theirs, and he would not interrupt.

He knelt down instead in front of one of the other kids, a redheaded ten-year-old named Pocket. Unlike the four whom David had found, these three were fully dressed.

"Was you out somewheres?" Jack asked quietly.

Pocket met Jack's eyes nervously, then quickly glanced away.

"You can tell us, kid," Jack said. "We needs to know."

Pocket licked his lips. "We snuck out. Les said nobody was to know, 'cos he had to stay in. We...we wanted t'see where they found old man Beecham."

Jack nodded to himself. Two days ago, the body of a relatively wealthy clothes-merchant named Walter Beecham had been discovered floating just off a Hudson River pier belonging to the Lehigh Valley Railroad. An investigation had been opened, and newspapers eagerly speculated on whether it had been an accident, suicide, or murder. They wouldn't find out, now, Jack realized. They'd never find out.

The pier wasn't far from here, almost due west. A tempting short trip.

"...And we was coming back. The bells started ringin' and we sees the fire..." He trailed off.

"So you hid," Jack said.

Pocket nodded, scrubbing one scraped fist across his watering eyes in angry embarrassment. Racetrack crouched next to them, pulling a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and wrapping it about the kid's hand. "Here."

David drew a deep breath and pulled away from Les just far enough to look into his face. "Why didn't you let us know you were here?"

"I wasn't s'posed to be out," Les sobbed. "I thought you'd be mad."

"Mad...!" David looked like he was struggling to find any suitable response, then gave up and hugged him close again.

The sound of returning footsteps made Jack look up. Renewed hope had sent the rest of the older boys scouring the street for any other survivors, but when Jack met their bleak expressions, he didn't even have to ask.

"We can't stay," Jack said, rising to his feet. Shouts and the clatter of hooves on cobblestones warned them and they sprang back to the curb just before a wagon, laden with adults and children and what looked like a jumble of possessions, hurtled around the corner and past them at full speed.

David took a few steps back, still holding Les. "I gotta get home—"

"I'se comin' with you." Jack held out a hand to stop him just for a moment. The ruins of the House loomed in his peripheral vision; he turned his head away, looked to the rest. "The _Sun_ ain't no good. Takes too long to cross the Park, and you'se stuck out in the open the whole time."

"The Remington offices," Dutchy said.

Jack nodded. The building, owned by the typewriter-manufacturing company, stood on the near side of Broadway at Worth Street. It was just several blocks north and east of them. Five stories tall and fronted with marble, the middle of a row of three identical, adjoining buildings, it was well-shielded on either side. "Go. I'll be there soon's I can."

The boys slipped away.

Jack turned to David and Les. "C'mon."


	11. XI

When Jack got back to the tunnel from his second run that night with Race and Toms and eight semi-crushed boxes of Uneeda biscuits, the news wasn't good.

"Pipes is running a little dry, Jack," Boots told him.

Jack tore off another narrow strip of handkerchief and began wrapping David's thumb before the blood could begin to bead up again. "How bad?"

"Took all day just to get twelve bottles and four canteens."

That there was still fresh water running in the city was something of a miracle. There were no working steam-pumps left to move the water, of course, and a month ago it seemed something had begun to block, at unpredictable intervals, most of the flow into Manhattan from the reservoirs upstate. But the city's mains had been laid out with an eye towards letting gravity do much of the work, so water still made its way, albeit sluggishly, through pipes from the reservoir in Central Park—and from whatever managed to trickle in from upstate—down through to the south end of Manhattan.

But just because water flowed didn't mean you could always get to it. Low water pressure meant that water rarely made it above basement-level pipes—although you could sometimes get lucky, the farther downtown you went—but basements were often flooded, whether by the bursting of these pipes or by rainwater, or by the rare but deadly sudden surge from upstream. The liquid that filled these spaces was almost guaranteed to turn out to be tainted by debris and sewage and, once in a while, bodies; you quickly learned not to even approach them if you were smart.

Pipes could be smashed open, but unless you did it carefully, you'd submerge your own source soon enough, or at the very least leave the floor covered in a layer of standing water, heaven for mosquitoes and other sources of disease.

And you never knew when a pipe would simply dry up. If the pressure dropped, if it developed a leak somewhere else, if a building went down between here and the mains...

But the entrance grating to their ventilation shaft was situated, by nothing but pure dumb luck, near the City Hall Park's drinking fountain. The fountain itself had long since been toppled, but no matter: there was no longer enough pressure to bring the water up to ground level. The boys had managed to dig a deep, narrow hole near the fountain—making sure to scatter the resulting mound of dirt, because it did no good to draw attention to yourself—and by dint of scraped knuckles and badly-stripped tools and no small amount of cursing, tapped into the pipe just enough to get a dribble of water that could be stopped up at will.

The pipe was a slender one, which meant the pressure didn't drop as much as it could have, but still they'd had to deepen the hole and re-open the pipe at successively lower spots as the weeks wore on.

Jack tied off the ends of the small make-shift bandage. "How much we got stored?"

"Enough for three days," Specs said. "Not counting what they brung in today."

"Four canteens and fourteen bottles yesterday?" Jack asked.

"Yeah. Same's the day before that."

Bringing in only twelve bottles in addition to the canteens meant they were breaking even on the drinking water. They weren't in danger of dying of thirst, but their reserves would dwindle...reserves that they needed for things other than drinking, like washing their food pots, and keeping injuries clean. And you could only store so much for so long, cool though the air was down in the tunnel.

"Can't go much lower," Boots said. "'Nother foot, maybe..."

"I _ain't_ going any deeper," Pocket declared. "'S already twenty feet—"

"Thirteen feet," Specs murmured, without ire.

"—and it's all sand at the bottom. I don't _care_ if you got planks up all around it. I read the papes. I know what happens when you dig in deep and it's all sand at the bottom."

"He's right, Jack," Boots said. "It caved in a little yesterday. Not much, and we scooped it right back out, but..."

"It ain't just the sand," Specs said. "I know the pipes is drying out, but you never know when they'll flood again. And if somebody's down there when it does..."

"All right," Jack said, "all right. Let me think." He turned to David. "Wanna walk?"

Not waiting for an answer, he lifted David's hand and set it on his own arm, then stood. Once in a while David simply let go and refused to follow, but this time he only hesitated before getting to his feet without protest.

"Want some company?" Racetrack asked.

"Yeah."

Race picked up a candle in a jar and they paced towards the south end of the tunnel. David trailed silently behind, fingers loosely gripping Jack's elbow.

"Been a dry coupla weeks," Race said. "Ain't a cloud in the sky."

"The Reservoir might be running low." Not that there was any way to truly find out. Manhattan boasted three reservoirs, only one of which was still in use. The other two, though taken out of service years ago, still held water which could conceivably be retrieved, but that wasn't the point. If the reservoirs were the obvious source of water for the city's remaining inhabitants, then it was obvious to the dragons, too.

Like lions at a watering-hole, dragons could always be found near the reservoirs. Not only had they appropriated the giant artificial lakes for their own use—in a case of supreme irony, it was their arrival that had halted the planned demolition of the reservoir in Bryant Park—but those people sufficiently foolish or desperate to dare a run for the water in the early days had also provided more than enough incentive for the dragons to stay. By sheer proximity, the smaller lakes at Central Park were likewise too risky to use as sources, but that didn't stop people from occasionally trying.

And yet the dragons did not foul their own drinking-water, nor did they allow anything else to, a curse and a blessing mixed for those survivors who tried to get their water from anywhere south of the Central Park Reservoir.

"Another month and we might have snow," Race said. "Won't be no problems then."

"And the water barons'll go bust."

They paused by one of the fire-buckets, which were set against the wall at intervals. Jack tapped it with his boot out of reflex, was rewarded with the low pinging sound of a full bucket and a slight shimmer reflected in the lamplight.

"We gotta find a new pipe," Jack continued, musing aloud. "We tell the boys to keep an eye out whenever they'se outside. Maybe send out a few of 'em to look, special."

"And we start saving up to buy," Racetrack said.

"Race—"

"I know you don't like it. Well, neither do I. But what choice do we got?"

"They'd just as soon rip you off as look at you."

"I know."

"And if they don't rob you, somebody else will."

"I know." Race sighed. He was quiet for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out something which he turned and offered to David.

In his palm sat a small folding knife, its plain handle of dark wood set with two brass rivets. A long, deep scratch marred one side of it, but it was otherwise in one piece. David stared at it expressionlessly. Racetrack coughed.

"Found it today—the only one left that wasn't burned or bent or whatever." He waited patiently, then added, "Thought it might help with fixin' the ropes...you know."

Maybe it was the fact that Race spoke directly to David, not even once flashing an uncertain glance at Jack as most tended to do when David didn't respond immediately. Or maybe it was David's practical side responding to the simple usefulness of the tool. Either way, he let go of Jack and took the knife.

When he snapped it open and tilted it towards the dim light, Jack could see that the blade was a good one, sturdy but with a fine edge. The knife that David used now was thin and tended to dull easily when used to saw through heavy rope fibers. They had a couple of whetstones for the store of blades they'd collected, and no boy went out without an unsharpened one; but two whetstones were not nearly enough for all of them, and nothing beat having good-quality steel in the first place.

David closed the knife, then met Race's eyes briefly before blinking and looking away again.

Jack grinned. "Not bad, Race."

Race merely shrugged.

"Last ones in!" Mush called, jogging past them from the guard-post at the south end, where they could see boys climbing down, carrying bundles. Mush limped only slightly these days; by now, the break in his stride was no longer very noticeable unless you knew to look for it. As he got closer to the other end of the tunnel, it was obvious he repeated the message, as the rest began gathering in preparation for the evening meal.

"Eat first," Jack said. "We'll work it out after."


	12. XII

"I found some mirrors," Dutchy announced after supper, "but they'se mostly broken."

Jack flicked excess water back in the tub and wiped his hands dry. "That's nice, Dutch," he said, a little doubtfully.

"Now find us a barber," Racetrack said.

"Or a tailor," Boots suggested.

"I want one of them nice hats with the feathers in it!"

"Get me some hair-ribbons!"

Dutchy merely rolled his eyes, waiting patiently. "You guys finished?"

"Just about," Race said. "If I don't get one of them pretty lace handkerchiefs I think I'm gonna cry."

Actually, Jack thought, a few mirrors wouldn't come amiss, provided they were intact. Those boys who needed to shaved as best they could in front of a shard of mirror propped up against the wall. Jack had insisted, and met with little protest; beards were just too hot and itchy, and far too much work to keep clean. For that reason hair was also kept short—well, that, and the fact that long hair could snag on anything in the event they needed to make a quick getaway, and it gave an opponent something terribly handy to grab hold of. And it caught fire all too easily. The only real hazard of getting your hair cut lay in entrusting the scissors to your so-called friends.

Dutchy bent to retrieve a burlap sack, from which he slid a stack of small, flat objects onto the back of a crate. Each round mirror was about the size of his hand, with delicate scrolling metalwork and jewel-toned enamels on the reverse side. Out of the five, three had fractures clean across their reflective surfaces.

"Ain't really my style," Blink sniffed, leaning an elbow against Mush's shoulder. "Skittery can have 'em."

"'Least mine won't crack when I look in it," Skittery shot back.

"That's 'cos it's cracked already."

Dutchy selected a mirror, picked up a lantern, and headed into the black shadows of the south half of the tunnel. Curious, Jack and several others followed, crowding close to the lantern's yellow glow. Dutchy stopped under the ventilator opening and climbed the makeshift steps to remove both the brass panel and the crate it rested on, passing them down to Specs to be set aside. Holding up the lantern to the dark opening, he stood for a few moments, apparently lost in thought.

Jack peered up at him. "Whatcha doing?"

"Figurin' the distance," came the distracted reply. He took two paces back, heel coming perilously close to the edge of the crate. Specs smacked his ankle until he moved his foot.

Snoddy had grabbed up his shotgun as soon as they'd started heading in this direction, and had looked increasingly uneasy since the mouth of the shaft was uncovered. When Dutchy started to pull himself into the ventilator, he spoke up. "You ain't going outside..."

"No." Dutchy's voice was slightly muffled by the masonry around him. He disappeared completely, abruptly cutting off most of the light to the boys waiting below and prompting a little wave of nonchalant shuffling closer to the crates. At a small scraping noise within, Snoddy shifted his grip on the Parker, but did not raise it.

Dutchy was back shortly, standing again on the topmost crate, upper half of his body still in the shaft. "Where'd I put that mirror?"

"Here."

He took the glass from Specs and held it up to the lantern, fiddled with it, blew out a pleased breath. "Yeah. All right. Uh, Jack? You want to take a look at this?"

Shrugging, Jack joined him on the crate as Dutchy lowered the lantern, plunging the ventilator into blackness.

"Go on, take a look."

"Ain't nothin' to see, Dutch."

"Yeah. Move over a bit." Jack made room in the narrow space and Dutchy raised the lantern to eye-level. Yellow illumination played across the rough walls of the shaft; at his feet, Jack sensed another ripple of movement from the gathered boys as their light-source began to dwindle again.

The lantern was a policeman's model, dented and heat-discolored but still serviceable, that they'd snatched from the front stoop of a burnt-out tenement block (of the policeman himself there had been no sign, but no one had dared look at the long smears of ash too closely). Through the front lens, the beam shone brightly, focused by the reflector set behind the wick; it was a favorite choice for the boys to carry during guard duty. But though the slope of the shaft was fairly gentle, there was a point beyond which the light refused to reach, defeated not just by distance but by the angle. A lantern could only be tilted so far before you inadvertently shut off the flame or ran the risk of spilling fuel.

"See the X?" Dutchy asked.

The shaft was featureless, as far as Jack could tell. "What X?"

Dutchy lifted the mirror, accidentally elbowing Jack in the chest—"Sorry," he mumbled—and placed it at the base of the lamp. "That X."

There was now a circle of light several feet farther up the ventilator, against one curved wall. A thin white cross, chalked into the masonry, sat within it.

"That X?"

"Yeah," Dutchy said. He flipped the mirror face-down, and the mark vanished, swallowed instantly by the darkness around it.

"Nice," Jack told him, and meant it this time. Returning Dutchy's shy grin, he ducked back out into the tunnel proper. "Snoddy, you'se gonna want to see this." He jumped down to the floor as Snoddy took his place.

"Well?" Blink asked.

"Dutchy's got a neat trick there. Maybe save you guys some climbin' when you'se on the night watch, if Snoddy thinks it'll work."

"Throwin' light with mirrors, huh?" Specs said. He had a hand clasped around Dutchy's ankle. "Could come in real useful for other things."

Snoddy muttered something to Dutchy, then dropped to one knee. "Try it now."

"Hey—!" Skittery shielded his eyes as sudden illumination struck him full in the face. Up on the crates, Dutchy still held the lantern within the shaft, but the mirror was now angled downward. The redirected light played halfway around the circle of boys, picking out ragged shirts and soot-smudged faces: the half-healed bruise above Blink's good eye, the long knife scar that trailed from behind Race's ear. Dutchy turned the glass away again.

Snoddy was nodding to himself. "Yeah. That'll do." He squinted up at the ventilator, beckoned to Dutchy. "C'mon. Let's see how far we gotta climb before we can get the front door lit up."

"Yeah," Jack said, "but you'se waitin' 'til _we_ get back to the other end. You bums got the only lamp."

When they'd made their way back, Mush and Blink ventured into the lit part of the tunnel only long enough to snag another lantern and two mirrors, and set about trying to direct a beam of light around the corner of a shelf and onto the wall behind it. It attracted the attention of most of the rest, who pulled themselves from their nest of blankets and were soon gathered around them being as helpful as possible.

"You'se standin' too close—"

"—ain't gonna work, that light's too small—"

"Try steppin' to the left. No, no, the other left!"

"Turn it—"

"Quit gettin' that light in my face—"

"Quit gettin' your face in my light!"

"—a little better—"

"Try it again—"

"What if we get another lamp—"

A movement back at the crate where the rest of the mirrors lay caught Jack's eye, and he turned to see David standing beside the makeshift table. He had one of the mirrors in his hand, and was gazing silently into it.

Jack moved over to him, peered as unobtrusively as he could over his shoulder. The mirror was one of the broken ones. From his vantage point, Jack could only see David's right cheek and ear, reflected several times over in a grotesque pattern among the chips of glass. What could there possibly be to see in it?

He stepped aside, glanced again at David's face: tangled dark hair falling over blue eyes, hollow shadows beneath them, the tiny remnants of healed nicks on his chin—David shaved when prompted to, but never met his own gaze in the shaving-glass—and an expression that was never quite readable.

Jack reached over and picked up the remaining undamaged mirror and held it out, but David was already putting down his and walking away.

_Author's Note: Thanks to Charlie Bird for raising a question about the descriptions. What Dutchy's up to is meant to be a little cryptic at first, until Jack figures it out. But there were actually a couple of inaccuracies, leading to a rather different sort of crypticness. Fixed!_


	13. XIII

Skittery paused in sharpening his knife to scrub one hand through his sleep-mussed hair and yawn hugely. "Well, you can forget anything near Schermerhorn Row, ain't no pipes we can use there. We was there yesterday, you can't hardly get in."

"You could still get in the building on the east corner two weeks ago." Blink stepped unceremoniously over him, tin cup in hand.

"Yeah, two weeks ago. The building on the east corner ain't there no more."

"Christ." Blink shook his head and crouched to offer the cup to Mush, who was still lying flat on his back, an arm across his eyes.

"That better be coffee," Mush said, not looking up.

Blink squinted into the cup, gave it an experimental shake. "Sorry." He brightened. "I can make it _look_ like coffee if you want..."

Mush lifted his arm with a suppressed groan, blinking red-rimmed eyes at the brick ceiling. "Nooo..."

"You ain't lookin' so hot, Mush," Race told him.

"I'se fine—"

"Sure you is," Blink said. "That's why you sound like you swallowed a box of sand and your eyes look like you bathed 'em in whiskey."

Jack looked up from where he and Dutchy were studying the map. "He sick?"

"Nah, he ain't sick," Blink answered. "He just didn't get no sleep."

"What, none?"

"Fellas! I'se right here—"

"None. And no matter what, he's gonna say he's fine, so don't bother askin' him."

Mush sat up and tugged the cup of water from Blink's fingers, taking a small sip. Blink settled down next to him, casually hooked an elbow around his neck.

A single night of restlessness and Mush looked positively haggard, his usual easy smile more than a little strained. Jack found himself gloomily unsurprised. It wasn't the physical lack of sleep that did you in; it was what went on in your head while you weren't sleeping.

"Why didn't you wake me up, idiot?" Blink muttered, almost too low for Jack to catch. He didn't hear Mush's quiet reply, nor did he make any further attempt to listen in on what was, by now, an old argument.

He glanced at David; but David had his head down, consumed, even at this early hour, with cutting a burnt length from a coil of rope. Skittery's team had brought it back from the waterfront the day before. Despite the glinting of the new knife blade as David sawed with almost feverish intensity through the thick fibers, his face held no impatience or frustration, only absorption.

"...then we heard dogs down at the piers," Skittery said, "so we was _outta_ there."

Low muttering greeted this revelation: dog packs were bad news.

"Speakin' of which, a bunch of guys moved into the Vanderbilt mansion up on Fifth Avenue," Bumlets said, conscientiously shoving his blankets back against the wall, out of the passageway.

"Which Vanderbilt mansion?" Race asked.

"Which...oh. The fancy white marble one...usedta have a pointy roof?"

"They friendly?" Jack asked.

"I wish," Snitch said, rolling over and joining the conversation. He'd been part of the same team as Bumlets yesterday. "They'se about ten of 'em, big men, like they was dockworkers or construction men. We didn't get real close."

Beside Jack, Dutchy quietly located the intersection on the map, pencilled in the number "10" and an "X." Jack nodded at him, and said, "Ain't that right near St. Patrick's?"

"And St. Thomas, and the Presbyterian," Race added, shaking his head. "That block is lousy with churches."

"Couldn't pay me to move in there," Skittery put in.

Jack narrowed his gaze at both Bumlets and Snitch. "What was _you_ doin' there?"

"Well, uh..." Bumlets glanced at his teammate.

"Relax, Jack," Snitch said. "We saw the dragons leave, and figured we'se just gonna run in for a minute. You can find good stuff there, sometimes, 'cos hardly anyone else goes."

Jack leaned forward. "Yeah, that's 'cos they actually wanna come back with all their arms and legs on."

"We didn't stay." Bumlets' tone was soothing. "Soon's we saw them men, we took off."

"And if they wasn't there?" At their silence, Jack sighed. "I don't want you taking no chances like that, all right? It ain't worth it. I don't care if you brings back the Hope Diamond, it ain't worth it."

Bumlets nodded.

"I mean it, Snitch," Jack said.

Snitch's shoulders tightened, but he made no move. "All right." His voice was flat. Behind him, several of the boys exchanged glances.

Snoddy stepped over to them. "I think there's a cat outside," he said absently, breaking open his shotgun to check the ammunition.

"You ain't gonna shoot it, is ya?" Bumlets asked, faintly alarmed. Skittery tossed him the whetstone.

Snoddy laughed. "Nah. O'Dell and Chopper heard it last night, that's all." He slid both shells back in and closed the gun again, rested it in the crook of his elbow. "It ain't there now." He raised his voice. "We'se going upstairs, so line up if you'se comin'. Word of the day is 'Santiago'. Pass it on."

Boys pulled themselves to their feet, rubbing at faces and tugging on shirts, heading for the south end for a quick trip aboveground before breakfast. Blink was trying his best to look martyred, and not wholly succeeding; Mush had dozed off against his shoulder.

"Ease up, Dave," Jack murmured, as David parted the frayed ends with a particularly vicious yank. "Rope's already dead, I think."

* * *

Jack tugged at a ragged corner of his knife sheath, keeping half on eye on David to see that he finished the last bit of biscuit that was breakfast. The stitching on one side of the sheath would probably need to be reinforced soon; the threads were starting to come loose.

"...and you'se staying in today," Blink was saying. "Ain't that right, Cowboy?"

"I stayed in yesterday—"

Jack cut him off. "He's right, Mush."

"But—"

"No buts. You catch up on your rest, you goes out tomorrow. Go talk to Snoddy; tell him I said you'se pulling guard duty at home for half the day."

Mush sighed. "Okay, Jack."

"_After_ you get some sleep."

"Yes, Jack."

Blink nudged his shoulder. "You didn't dream again just now, did you?"

"No." Mush slumped against the wall. "Just...last night, I kept seeing the Lodging House, you know?" He rubbed his arms, as though trying to fight off a chill. "Like I'd been there when...when it happened. I could see the kids makin' it out the door, and Ten-Pin was shoutin', and then...Itey, he—"

Jack shot him a warning look, feeling like a complete heel when Mush strickenly clamped his mouth shut, but it was too late. Snitch's eyes were already glazing over. As Jack watched, they slowly cleared, leaving nothing but a faint puzzlement.

"Who?" Snitch said.


	14. XIV

_Author's Notes: Yikes. While researching the other day, I came across a fascinating illustration that had originally appeared in an issue of _Woman's Home Companion _in 1902. It accompanied an article titled "How the World Will End," and shows City Hall Park (looking more or less from the point where Jack looks across Broadway towards the Park back in Chapter I), with Newspaper Row in the background, being obliterated by a fiery rain of meteors! How's that for freaky coincidences?_

_Also, some folks have asked about the historical elements in this fic. If it's of any interest, there are some notes on my LJ at (remove the spaces)_

_ldhenson . livejournal . com/108460 . html_

_Read or ignore as you wish (but not 'til you've read this chapter), leave comments, keep me honest._

* * *

I really ought to take my own advice, Jack thought.

He was crouched behind the splintered counter of what had once been a dry-goods store. The sack he carried was bulging with hastily-folded armfuls of broadcloth—thin stuff, half-burnt, and covered in a film of dust, but reasonably untouched beneath that. And woven of wool, if the semi-legible label was anything to go by. Any fabric that could serve as blankets in a pinch was never passed up; blankets were not necessarily in short supply, but the means to keep them clean _was_, and so they'd forgone laundering in lieu of simply finding new bedclothes whenever possible.

His legs were starting to ache from having been in one position for so long. There was too much broken glass littering the floor for him to think about trying to kneel or sit. Tightening his fingers on the edge of the countertop, he braced his forearms against the side of it, trying to take some of the weight off his legs.

He kept up a mental count, determined not to let the seconds turn into apprehension-laced hours, calculating how much longer he had until Toms and Chopper had to turn and make for home.

The dragon was still there.

From his vantage point, barely peering over the scarred wooden surface, he could see the creature's hindclaws gripping its marble perch, and the line of one giant folded wing. He had no idea how long it had been there. He was sure he'd only come into the store a few minutes ago, and it had been nowhere in sight then.

So much for his own advice. This building stood within the shadow of Grace Church, and for all his warnings about staying away from church-heavy areas, look where he was now.

When the dragons had first struck the city, thousands had fled to churches to seek refuge. The massive citadels that were the larger church-buildings, with their marble facings and their vast spaces and their lofty arches, seemed to offer indefinable hope to the devout and the nonbelieving alike. Trinity Church, St. Peter's, the Judson Memorial...all of them took in the crowds that poured through their doors and huddled in their naves and pews, trusting in the material solidity of stone walls and in the intangible sanctity of holy ground, trusting that the churches would remain unshaken.

They had been half right.

The dragons did not bring down the cathedrals. They left mostly-untouched the altars and the transepts and the soaring vaulted ceilings. Mostly.

Mostly. What the dragons left untouched most of all were the spires, the steeples, the bell-towers.

Monstrous birds of prey, the dragons swiftly seized the highest perches. Tall but broad buildings, capable of supporting two dragons on their peaks at once, soon fell in the territorial battles that raged in the skies above the city. What survived were the narrow spires, structures like the _Tribune _building and Madison Square Garden. And the church towers.

For the thousands jammed inside, the churches themselves had become death-traps. Those who made frantic attempts to escape rarely made it past the glittering eyes of dragons on their own roofs. And as for the vast majority who stayed within...

Jack wiped his brow against his sleeve, kept one eye on the dragon and another on the sky. Just because there was one beast out there didn't mean there couldn't be another.

If the facade of this building hadn't been cracked open, he wouldn't be able to see the dragon from here. Part of the ceiling near the ruined front door had been torn away, revealing blue sky where there shouldn't have been any. This was, after all, only the ground floor.

He flexed the fingers of his right hand, winced as the long cut pulled open again. He'd left a smear of blood, despite wrapping his hand, on one of the jagged planks of heavy wood—probably a shelf—that formed part of the head-high tangle of debris that blocked the back door. Some of the smaller items—a cash register, a display table—had come away easily, but the larger ones were firmly wedged. He'd tried climbing over the obstruction, only to find that the back door apparently opened inward.

Someone—or rather, several someones, since there was no way a single person had been able to lift all those objects—had tried to barricade themselves in. He suppressed a shudder. They'd tried to barricade the back door, only to have something come in through the front—

The dragon lifted its wings suddenly, and even from here, two blocks away, Jack could hear its piercing hiss.

Oh god—

He ducked reflexively as a reptilian scream sounded, followed closely by a returned challenge, the shrill cries overlapping. Sharp pain shot through his left knee as it struck the floor, but he ignored it, ears straining to sort through the sounds of the uproar.

The dragon leapt into the air and out of Jack's line of sight, powerful downstroke of its wings almost like a physical force against his eardrums. More of the creatures' screams sounded, two giant shadows sweeping over streets and buildings at unbelievable speed, circling each other.

Dragons clashing in the air meant dragons distracted. Jack's gaze flicked to the front door, flicked back to the sky, even though he could no longer see the beasts, only the criss-crossing paths of darkness where they blotted out the sun.

He steeled himself, absently brushing fine glass fragments from his left knee. His hand came away slightly damp.

The chance was now. Waiting until the end of the fight would only bring the victor down to claim its roost, and the day was already growing late. It might not leave again until nightfall, and that was almost not worth thinking about.

A huge impact from above, rattling the foundations. An iron balustrade slammed to the pavement just outside, partially blocking the door, leaving only a three-foot gap near the ground. Something had landed, or been dropped, on the roof of what sounded like the adjoining building. Jack shook fallen dust from his hair, coughing a little. Experimentally, he hefted the full sack, and for once found himself grateful that the day's haul was light. Outside, only one shadow was moving.

Then with a crash of broken masonry the other shadow sprang up to meet the first. Shrieks rang and echoed, and Jack sucked in a deep breath and ran for it.

He was just sliding himself between the crumbling doorway and the fallen balustrade when the building shook again. Metal objects showered down—iron finials sheared from the roof, each of them a dagger as long as his forearm, plunging points-first. One clipped his arm and with a _bang _drove deep into a crack in the cobblestones, pinning his sleeve. Snatching his knife from his belt, he slashed through the fabric, squirmed through the gap, gained his feet and immediately veered left without stopping to look. He didn't need to. There was no mistaking where the dragons were.

One huge body spun off-balance into the side of a building across the street, brought to a halt by claws biting into brick. The sheer momentum threw loose masonry across the narrow roadway and Jack dove behind the skeleton of a carriage, hearing heavy pieces smack into the metal frame around him.

The second the missiles stopped falling, he was up and running again, darting through an alley and turning south.

He wasn't even aware he'd gone two blocks until a pair of figures jumped out in front of him. He shied and instinctively brought up the knife, until his eyes readjusted and he realized he was looking at Chopper and Toms.

"C'mon." Chopper grabbed the sack and slung it over his own shoulder. The dragons were still clearly visible, high in the sky three blocks away; the boys slipped along a side-street, hugging the walls.

"Thought you woulda been gone by now," Jack panted.

"What, an' show up at home without you?" Chopper cracked. But he sounded a little shaky.


	15. XV

_Author's Notes:_

_Readers, a favor: If you've left reviews, I've always replied to them (provided you leave contact info). But now I suspect that the reply feature may not be working from one of the computers I sometimes use. If you reviewed the last chapter, give me a holler and let me know if you heard from me?_

_Also...shout-out to my anonymous reviewers!_

* * *

"All right, last one," Snoddy said. Jack gritted his teeth as the other boy readjusted his grip on his knee.

The curved shard of glass slid out, a sharp jolt of pain. Snoddy dropped it into the tin cup where it joined the smaller chips with an incongruously-cheery jingle. He tipped more water over Jack's knee, adding new crimson swirls to the already-reddened contents of the bucket beneath, then nodded when he could find no more glittering specks embedded in the flesh. Jack hissed as a quick splash of whiskey followed, the liquor burning like a hot poker despite being watered down. He pressed his undamaged left palm to the cuts, feeling the unpleasant thick wetness as fresh blood oozed from them.

The slashes were, thankfully, not deep, only numerous. Frankly, he'd had much worse before, although running at top speed for a mile and a quarter with glass still stuck in him hadn't particularly helped.

"No, cut it smaller—half that," he told Mush. "It's only bleeding in the middle."

Mush opened his mouth as if to protest, then shut it again.

"'S bleeding everywhere, Jack," Snoddy said mildly, absently wiping his stained fingers on his pantsleg.

"Yeah, well, it's only _bad _in the middle. The ones on the edges'll stop soon enough." He took the small piece of gauze Mush handed him, peeled his hand away, and slapped the dressing down in its place, holding it on tightly.

In the old days, he wouldn't have bothered with fancy things like gauze. Kloppman had kept a box of supplies behind his counter and insisted on their use, but it...well, it just wasn't _done_. You didn't ask Kloppman for the box unless you thought your finger would fall off or your liver was about to dissolve or perhaps your elbow actually bent the wrong way. Even before that, when he'd lived on the streets and had no kindly old man with cotton dressings and carbolic to turn to, he'd survived just fine.

...Kloppman with his old worn grey derby, and the box behind the counter...

But nowadays, they'd seen enough of festering lacerations and gangrene among the walking wounded on the streets to at least take some steps. They had a single medical bag's worth of supplies, snatched from the rubble of what had once been the German Dispensary ("'S a free clinic anyway," someone had half-hysterically said at the time). The use of well over half the bottles and instruments within remained a mystery, but that had been no reason not to salvage them.

"Did he really throw the other one into a building?" Pocket asked.

"Yeah," Jack said. "And he left clawmarks on the brick wall thick as your arm."

"Did he burn 'im?"

Tin-Pin elbowed him. "Dragons don't burn other dragons, stupid."

"I ain't stupid." Pocket jabbed him back.

"Hey!" Blink snapped, stopping Ten-Pin mid-shove.

"He started it!" Pocket pointed out.

"Do I look like I care who started it?" Blink said. "No wrestling down here, and the two a' you know it."

They subsided readily. Jack waved them all away. "Go on now, this ain't a show. Don't yous have supper to eat or something?"

That got them moving, the wave of boys heading back towards the crate they'd all turned away from when Jack had limped into the lamplight some minutes earlier with blood soaking one trouser-leg. Jack slouched a little lower on the crate he currently occupied, leaned his head back against the brick wall behind him and let his eyes drift shut.

There was the rustling of paper sacks, the tearing open of packages and boxes.

"—found this old blue china bowl, lucky I looked under the sewing machine—"

"—so he tugs on the rope and says, 'Pull me up, boys,' and we hoist him outta the basement with his arms fulla—"

"I'se starvin'—"

"Is those peanuts?"

"—heard this barkin', ran like hell and barely got away from—"

Someone shook a paper bag, accompanied by small rattling noises.

"Hey, is that candy?"

"—gotta 'nother bag—"

"Get yer fingers outta it, I'll divvy it up—"

"Did we finish them apples?"

Jack cracked one eye open, glanced to his right down the length of the tunnel beyond the waiting boys, frowned a little. As always, there were a handful slumped against the walls or on the blankets, too tired or uncaring to clamor for supper or even to come watch Jack getting glass plucked from his knee. He watched Toms try to pull Flick to his feet, watched Flick yank his arm out of the other boy's grasp and push him off. Jack sat up a bit higher, but Toms seemed not to take offense, crouching down to speak with his friend. He got up again a few moments later, shaking his head.

Jack looked back at the group waiting for their food, found Skittery closest to him. "Hey, Skitts?"

"Yeah?"

Jack motioned with his head. "Bring some to Dave, willya? It don't matter if he don't want...if he ain't hungry. Just leave it there. I'll be over soon."

"Yeah, sure Jack. You need anything?"

"Nah. Just tell Race to save me some."

"For a bu—"

"Don't even start."

"Sorry, Jack," Skittery said, sounding not at all so.

He thought about asking Skittery to see if he couldn't get David to at least stop working, even if he wouldn't eat, but he let it go. He could still see the occasional flash of the knife as David sliced something apart with the blade-point. With the task half-finished, he wouldn't be easily drawn from it; even Jack's return had made no impact. One thing at a time, Jack decided.

"Jack! There's candy!"

"Huh?" When had he closed his eyes again?

"Ten-Pin, let 'im be," Race called.

The kid looked sheepish, but Jack sat up and rubbed his face. "Nah, 's okay. Gotta eat, anyway."

He started to rise, but Race waved him back down. "Sit."

"Ain't crippled, Race—"

Race's jaw tightened. "_Sit_."

He sank back down. "All right, all right."

Race stepped over to him, handed him a cup of water and his share of the food wrapped in a bit of cloth. As Jack let it fall open to reveal the meagre rations, Racetrack knelt, pulling a strip of clean fabric from his pocket. "Let go," Race told him, and Jack pulled his hand away with some difficulty from the blood-soaked pad of gauze, the edges already crusting over.

"So you was up at Broadway and 10th, huh?" Race asked conversationally, winding the strip around Jack's knee.

"Yeah." Both of his hands were smeared with red, the right one less so, now that the gash across it had stopped bleeding. He fished out the slice of apple, took a bite of the leathery flesh. It was more tart than sweet, seeming to settle uneasily in his stomach, but he wasn't about to complain.

"Did you get lost?"

"Lost?" He frowned. "Nah, I knew where we was." He found two pieces of licorice and three biscuits, went for the licorice first.

"We, huh?"

"Yeah, _we_. You'se asking a lotta questions tonight, Race."

Race smoothed down the edge of the gauze where it was getting wrinkled beneath the binding strip. "Well, so answer 'em."

Jack bit into a biscuit, perhaps a little harder than he needed to. "I knew," he said deliberately, "where I was, and I knew where Chopper was, and I knew where Toms was. At all times."

"Cute, Jack."

"They didn't get a scratch and I only tore up my knee. So I been hurt worse than this before, and you know it."

"You been hurt less than this before, too."

He swallowed the rest of the biscuit as Race carefully pulled the slack out of the makeshift bandage. "Spit it out, Race. What's eating you?"

Race's hands stilled, the knot half-tied, and he looked up to meet Jack's gaze. "Did you forget about Grace Church sitting right there? Did you think what would happen if the dragons got you?"

"Yeah. That's why I made the boys wait. They was three blocks away, I told 'em to head straight back here if I didn't come back in twenty minutes. They was fine—"

"No, they wasn't!" Race kept his voice low, nearly hissing the words. "Chopper told me what it was like, how they couldn't stop you—"

"The dragons didn't even know I was there!"

"You got _lucky_." Race shook his head and finished off the knot, sat back on his heels. "Pure dumb luck, Jack."

He started to rise, disregarding his knee's protest. "Maybe. But it worked, didn't it?"

Shooting to his feet, Race grabbed the front of his shirt, dark eyes snapping. "Damn it, Jack, I know you. I _know_ you. First one in where it's dangerous, last one in when we'se getting home. What makes you so goddamned _special?_"

Jack took a half-step back against the crate, thrown off-balance by Race's fury. Around them, heads were beginning to turn. "I _ain't _never said I was somebody special—" he started.

"What do you think would've happened if you hadn't come back? You don't think they would've stayed, 'cos no matter what you told 'em they couldn't just up and leave you there? You don't think they would've tried to come in after you? What would've happened _then? _It ain't all about you."

He grabbed Race's sleeve and pushed back, as much out of frustration as his refusal to lose his footing, leaving a bright red streak along the other boy's arm. The cut across his palm had split again, but he ignored it. "You think it's _easy_, Race? You want to—"

"Damn it, Kelly, I—"

"_Listen_, Race. Day after day, what do you think—" He broke off at the sound of sudden murmurs, movement in his peripheral vision. Turning, he saw David rising to his feet, blank expression slowly giving way not to anger but to concern and determination, his eyes fixed on the sight of Jack's blood staining Race's shirt.

The knife was still gripped in his hand as he stepped closer. Every one of Jack's instincts told him that it was not deliberate, that David had only stood without thinking of setting down the knife. But he could not guarantee it. He could not prove it.

He darted a glance at Race, whose face had blanched. "Race—he don't mean—" But he pushed Race to one side anyway, stepped between him and David. "Dave, stay there. I ain't hurt."

He moved forward to intercept the younger boy, whose eyes flicked restlessly between Jack and the darkening splotch on Race's sleeve. Jack caught his right arm, taking care to do it with his uninjured left hand; felt the tautness of his muscles, pressed him back a little. "Look at me." He squeezed David's arm to keep his attention. "Look at me. I ain't hurt. Nobody hurt me."

David obeyed. He was breathing fast, but didn't try to wrench himself from Jack's grasp or push past him. After a long moment, some of the tension seemed to ebb from his frame, and he let himself be steered back towards their spot next to the wall.

Jack slid the knife out of unresisting fingers, flipped the blade shut and dropped it into his own pocket. By the time he got David to sit and turned to glance back over his shoulder, Race was already looking the other way.


	16. XVI

_Author's Notes: If you reviewed or e-mailed me in response to my note (which I've removed by now) about Chapter XV, thanks and I appreciate the info and encouragement. I don't want to compel anyone to review; I figure people will do so when they want to and that's that. XV's feedback was so different that I threw it open to make sure I wasn't missing why. Turns out FFnet flaked out when I tried to update that chapter and made a hash of the alerts. Voila, mystery solved._

_I've written up to Chapter XXXII (and counting) at this point (though updates take a while since the events of new chapters usually mean I have to revise earlier ones), so stick around._

* * *

He started to head back towards Race, only to have David get to his feet again. "Dave, sit down. 'S all right."

He was met with blunt refusal and fingers seizing his sleeve. Stopped short, he turned and took hold of David's shoulders, doing his best not to leave red smudges on the fabric. "I need to talk to Race, okay? Just talk. I promise."

But David shook his head, agitation building in his eyes. Impulsively, Jack drew him close. He could feel the tremors that coursed through him, and it was then that he realized it was only sheer force of will that was keeping David from exploding into action, from doing—what, Jack didn't know. The folding-knife that sat in his pocket was an unambiguous weight.

"I promise," he repeated, but though David released his sleeve, there was no lessening of the strain in his body. "Davey..."

"Tomorrow." It was scarcely more than a breath, and for a moment, Jack was not even sure it had been spoken.

"What?"

David said nothing, looked away.

"Ask me again," Jack said firmly. "Ask me again, I didn't hear it."

When no reply was forthcoming, he set his jaw, dropped his hands from David's shoulders and took a deliberate step back. David's head snapped up, something akin to disbelief crossing his expression.

Jack backed away another step, wiping his palms dry on his trousers, watched David's fists clench and his eyes narrow. For the space of a half-dozen breaths David stood, unmoving. Though he could have easily closed the distance between them and physically kept Jack from leaving, he did not do so, and eventually his hands relaxed again. He opened his mouth, but no sound emerged.

Cursing himself inwardly, Jack took another step, then another, saw the last traces of anger seep from David's face, to be replaced by distress. And beneath it, a flash of emotion that looked very much like shame.

_Jesus christ._

One word, Jack thought, I can't keep this up, any word, please...

Another step—

"Tomorrow," David whispered all but inaudibly, and it was solely because Jack was watching his lips that he even caught it, but it was more than enough.

He moved quickly back to David's side. "All right. All right." He pulled David to his shoulder, running his hands over the tense back, torn between guilt and elation that David had even spoken at all. "Tomorrow. Nothing 'til tomorrow."

From David he sensed nothing of relief or even interest in the fact that he had verbalized anything. There was only a strange sort of defeat. He did not return Jack's embrace, but he did not push Jack away.

"I cut me hand when I'se out," Jack murmured in his ear. "Racetrack didn't have nothing to do with it, you hear me? We was just talking. I swear."

Some part of him rooted in old habits still anticipated a nod or a question or any other response, but this was David, so Jack shut up and waited.

David's rapid breathing gradually eased, thudding heartbeat slowing against Jack's own ribs. Cautiously, Jack pushed him back, held him at arm's length. Though David made no move, Jack could see in the dulling of his eyes, as they faded back to their usual detachment, a withdrawal as clear as if he'd physically retreated into the shadows behind him.

Don't go, Jack almost told him, but he knew it would have made no difference at all.

* * *

At least he'd managed to persuade David to eat. No one disturbed or even stared at them in the meantime, though Jack was fully aware of the surreptitious looks cast in their direction.

While David picked listlessly at the biscuits, Jack looked up, intending to call one of the others over. Snoddy met his eyes almost immediately, and when Jack raised an eyebrow, joined them without hesitation.

At the look on Jack's face, Snoddy shrugged and said without apology, "If there's a fight going on, I gotta know about it."

Jack grinned ruefully, but his mirth was short-lived. "Yeah, I guess you do. Tell Race something for me, will you?"

"Sure, Jack."

"Tell him I'll talk to him tomorrow. It ain't that I don't want to, but now just ain't the time. Tell him...tell him I hope he ain't—" What? Furious? Mortally insulted? "I hope there ain't no hard feelings."

Snoddy nodded. "You got it." He glanced at David, but didn't say anything.

Jack shifted reflexively, then arrested the movement. "You don't gotta worry about Dave," Jack told him.

Snoddy met his gaze levelly. When he spoke, his voice was only neutral. "I ain't."

He answered just as neutrally. "I know."

He waited until Snoddy was halfway to delivering his message before he leaned over and said to David, "I gotta go clean up. I'll be right back, all right?"

David's eyes, so distant a heartbeat ago, snapped to Race. Jack deliberately blocked his line of sight, tilted his palms to show the ruddy blotches. "You don't want me sleepin' like this, do you?" It wasn't an entirely fair tactic, but Jack was rapidly running out of steam. David dropped his gaze, and didn't react when Jack got up.

When Jack got back, hands cleaned and one tattered pants-leg wrung as dry as possible below the knee, he was carrying the box of tools he'd retrieved from the lit part of the living quarters. David reached immediately for it. "'S late, Davey," Jack told him. "You been working all day."

It was merely a guess, but a likely one. David opened the box anyway, fingers restlessly pulling out the contents: three fids and a needle, and two small balls of twine. He hadn't, Jack noted, so much as touched the licorice, having pushed the pieces to the very corner of the blanket. Jack scooped them up without a word.

Stretching out on his back on the floor, he watched through half-closed eyes as David completely unwound and re-wound first one ball of twine, then the other, the movements quick and practiced despite the apparent purposelessness of the task. He sorted through the fids, lined them up, scattered them again.

Jack found himself staring with new unease at the row of slender wood and ivory spikes. When somebody had brought the first one back to the tunnel from the docks, it had been quickly tossed aside, deemed too flimsy to use as a weapon. The largest was no longer than a pen, and though they all tapered to a point, their tips were not particularly sharp. Knives did the job better if that was what you were looking for. But...

Without lifting his shoulders off the floor, Jack picked one up, rolled its polished length between his fingers. The ivory was slightly yellowed, darkening near the knobbed handle. He closed it experimentally in his fist, holding it in an underhanded grip, bracing the knob against his thumb and letting the point protrude beyond like a dagger.

Then again, what _couldn't _be used as a weapon?

He flicked his gaze to the right to meet David's startled expression, saw dismay beginning to well up in those eyes. Immediately, Jack set the fid down beside the others, grabbed a handful of David's shirt-hem instead, tugged lightly at it in a kind of wordless apology. "I ain't thinking that," Jack told him clearly, and it was true. "Not about you. I know you wouldn't do that, all right? But—" He broke off, fumbling for the words to explain. "They'se still _spikes_. It's just...it's a fact. So you gotta be careful, you understand? I want you to be real careful."

Say yes. Say yes, _say_ yes...

He settled, however, for the hesitant nod he received. He let go of David's shirt, pulled the blanket over himself and tried to ignore the growling in his stomach that insisted that night's supper hadn't made even a dent in the ever-present hunger.

It was not until David had finished winding the smaller bundle of twine a second time and set everything back in the box, his hands now calm, that Jack finally let himself drift off. Not once had David indicated that he wanted the knife returned.

* * *

When Jack woke up some hours later, in the middle of the night, it was to find his arm gone slightly numb from David's sleeping weight against it.


	17. XVII

"—and that's the stupidest thing I ever heard, Jack."

They were standing facing each other in the closest thing the tunnel had to a corner, in the shadow of a tall stack of roped-together crates that formed a set of makeshift shelves. Jack leaned against the curved brick wall, doing his best not to make it obvious that he was favoring his left leg. Although there wasn't much point trying to keep things hidden, when it came to Race.

They both kept their voices low, and not only because it was still early morning.

"I do what I gotta do, to keep everybody upright and breathing. Ain't we lost enough already?"

Race gritted his teeth. "That's a low blow, and you know it."

"You don't like hearing it, I don't like saying it." Before Racetrack could retort, Jack softened his tone. "That don't stop it from being true."

"It don't mean you takes crazy chances, neither."

"I can't ask nobody else to."

Quiet voices and rustling drifted over to them, most of the rest of the boys beginning to stir: sounds of studious avoidance. Race blew out a breath. "That store yesterday could've been empty."

"Yeah," Jack said. "And then I wouldn't a' stayed. I would've been _outta _there before the dragon even came back."

Race shook his head sharply. "You don't know that."

"None of us knows nothin' before we go in anywheres, Race. I did it as safe as I could."

"'Cept for not going in at all."

"Damn it," Jack ground out, "we needed something for blankets. It's getting colder every day, or ain't you noticed? We don't got medicine, Race. We don't got a fire. We don't even got a vent to sleep over, or somebody's basement with a furnace we can sneak in and spend the night. That's all _gone_, you understand?"

"I know—"

"Somebody gets sick, what'se we gonna do?"

"I know it, all right? All I'm saying's we find another way—"

"Another way? I go back there today, the store would've been gone."

"We can't just go charging in—"

"We don't got _time!_"

Race's lip curled. "You in a hurry to die, Jack?"

"Pipe down," Jack hissed.

"Or what?" he spat. "I'se gonna get gutted in me sleep?"

Jack stared at him, only peripherally aware that his hands had balled into fists.

After a long moment, Race dropped his gaze. "Sorry," he muttered sullenly.

Jack flexed his fingers, forced his shoulders to relax. "Maybe we don't discuss this now."

There was a muted scrape as Race stomped a bootheel against the floor. He didn't look up to meet Jack's eyes, and his voice was hard. "Yeah."

* * *

It hadn't gone well. And now Race was outside with most of the rest of the boys, while Jack, confined to the close quarters of the tunnel, could only seethe with frustration and curse at the stiffened knee that had landed him with home duty for the day.

Seated on the bottom step of the crates, he pulled the Bowie knife yet again from its makeshift canvas sheath, tilted it to the remnants of noon light that came faintly through the ceiling portal of the ventilation shaft. Sporting a heavy, foot-long blade, it was easily twice the length of the one he usually carried. This one—he tested the wicked, curving edge lightly with a thumb, though he'd sharpened it just hours ago—was for guard duty only. Tucked into his belt on the other side was a letter opener, its sterling-silver plating worn in numerous spots, exposing the base metal beneath. With its ornate mother-of-pearl handle it appeared to be an incongruous companion to the Bowie, but its tip and top two inches had been honed to razor sharpness. It made an excellent thrusting weapon.

This morning he'd returned the pocketknife to David, and David had accepted it without a glimmer of emotion. He'd waited until after he'd finished talking with Race to do it, telling himself that it gave David another twenty minutes of sleep, or at least another twenty minutes of inactivity. Which was pretty much the same as rest, wasn't it? Not that he'd tried to tell David so. His brain had been smart for once, and had kept his mouth firmly shut.

From beside him now, Flick's scowling silence was a match for his own. Snoddy and Dutchy were at their post, up at the grate. Jack glanced down the length of the tunnel to the living quarters, gave a vague start of guilt when he found himself briefly wishing one of the boys would wander this way and stay for a bit so that he wouldn't be stuck with just Flick for company while the both of them stood guard.

It hadn't always been like this. He'd never known Flick very well, but whenever he chanced to think of him, it was invariably as part of a group of three: Flick, Toms, and Cork, with Chopper at times entering their orbit. They had neither been particularly quarrelsome nor picked-upon; they had generally stayed in the lower bunk-room, occupying themselves with dice or laughter-punctuated chat; they had been at the Theatre that fatal night, and so had made it out alive.

They'd done their share of the work when the group had moved into the subway tunnel. Toms and Chopper had proved to be handy with a slingshot; Flick and Cork knew their way around knives. They'd taken up residence near the lit end of the sleeping area, the three of them together as always, with their occasional fourth; had carved a new, if slightly lopsided, set of dice; conducted their chatting in whispers on those days when the entire group of boys crouched tense and waiting for raiders or dragons aboveground to pass them by. They'd still laughed, though much more quietly now: Flick taking Cork to task for the crooked dice, Toms grinningly sneaking from the store of pebble-markers when they weren't looking.

Then Cork had gone out on scavenging duty one day, and—

Jack found himself on his feet almost without realizing he'd gotten up. "I'se gonna take a walk down to the end."

Flick only grunted in reply.

Refusing to limp more than absolutely necessary, Jack made his way along the tunnel, heading for the lights of the north half.

Cork had gone out on scavenging duty one day, and had been brought back by his teammates, tightly wrapped in a torn brocaded curtain and so close to dead he might as well have been, with three bullets in him. Jack's jaw clenched at the memory. Blood soaking Toms' and Bumlets' hands and arms and shirts; blood smeared unthinkingly across Toms' brow, the thick smell of it everywhere. The shouting and the frantic gathering of cloths and blankets and water, all of it useless; no one sure where to press or how to hold or what to do about the terrible stain rapidly spreading onto the wool blankets beneath the wounded boy. Jack ordering Snitch to take Bumlets outside before he could throw up or pass out; Toms shaking and sobbing and begging his friend not to die. Cork, scarlet froth bubbling up at his darkening lips with every breath, not conscious enough to feel Toms' hand gripping his, only just conscious enough to whisper between the horrible racking, weakening coughs that oh jesus I think this is it, boys, I'se so very cold...

And Flick, returning home twenty minutes after, too late, too late...

He'd reached the edge of the living quarters. Jack shut his eyes for a moment, pressing the heel of one hand against them, before stepping forward into the lamplight.


	18. XVIII

The sounds of low conversation stopped as he did so. "You all right, Jack?" Skittery asked.

He straightened, clearing his expression. "Sure."

At this time of day there were only three boys here besides David; those on scavenging duty rotated in loose shifts, one team catching their rest at home until another came in, each team making several runs a day. This group had just come in less than half an hour ago, and were lounging against the crates near the lanterns.

A little farther down, against the opposite wall and with a lamp beside him, David did not raise his head at Jack's appearance, but his hands paused for a moment in weaving the strands.

"You'se kiddin' me," O'Dell was saying. "They did that every morning?"

"Every morning," Boots said. "And every morning, Cowboy'd give 'em what for. Ain't that so, Jack?"

"Yeah? What'se I agreeing to?"

Boots grinned. "The Delancys."

"Oh, them. Yeah. They was sure persistent." He moved past them, towards David.

Skittery picked up the story. "After the strike was over, they laid low for about a week, then they got right stupid again and started it back up." There was a shredding sound as he pulled a long splinter from the edge of one of the crates. "A coupla hard-headed bastards. Nothin' ever stopped 'em, until..."

He trailed off.

David was more or less as Jack had left him that morning, bent over his work, his hands steady; if last night still preyed on his mind, he gave no sign of it. Jack touched the back of his collar before turning and heading down the tunnel, back to his post.

He got there just in time to catch quiet voices and sounds of movement up top. Flick sprang to his feet, knife already drawn, but Jack stopped him with a hand. Tilting his head back to look into the ventilation shaft, he could see the light at the other end flash four times in signal: boys of their own coming in.

Dime was the first one through, carrying unsealed bottles full of water in both small fists, followed by Puley and Fizzer, both of them wide-eyed, with two canteens each slung around their necks.

"Look," Dime beamed, "I got all four bottles down here at once, didn't spill a drop."

"Good for you, kid," Jack told him. "Didn't Specs come in with yous?"

Dime shrugged. "Dutchy's at the grate," he said, as though that explained everything. He turned towards the north end of the tunnel, took one step and stopped short.

Jack pushed himself away from the wall he'd been leaning against. Just because there were lanterns at both ends didn't mean the intervening hundred and forty feet of passageway wasn't swallowed in pitch blackness. "C'mon." He didn't offer to take their bottles and canteens, only accompanied them down the tunnel. Puley and Fizzer clung to his shirt in the dark. "Everythin' all right upstairs?"

"I saw a dragon—" Fizzer said.

"Two dragons—" Puley put in.

"They was far off," Dime said confidently, with the supreme wisdom an eight-year-old has over those who are merely six. "Puny as pigeons."

"No they wasn't!" Puley insisted.

"All right. Maybe they wasn't," Dime admitted. "But they wasn't gonna get you, they was over in Brooklyn. That's what Specs said. There's lotsa smoke over that way, too."

So what was new? Jack thought.

"An' more smoke uptown," Dime went on, "but it weren't even close to us."

"Did they see us?" Puley asked tremulously.

"Prob'ly not," Jack said. "Specs'd be down here in a second telling us if he thought so, huh?"

They were almost to the lamplight. Skittery was tracing something on one of the small maps tacked to the wall, brow creased in thought. He was singing quietly, and Jack recognized the military tune; as they got nearer, he could make out the words. "In Santiago Harbor, Sampson had 'em bottled tight..."

Boots and O'Dell joined in. "Hobson put the cork in, and we think he did it right..."

Dime trotted on ahead, glass clinking in time with his steps.

"And when they find they can't get out, they'll have ta stand and fight! When we march into Cu—"

O'Dell broke off as Dime passed him, and reached out an arm to pull the young boy from the center of the passage back to their side of the wall. "Watch where you walk, kid," he muttered.

Jack caught up with them. "What's that all about?"

O'Dell looked a little startled, and opened his mouth, but before he could get any words out Skittery spoke up. "Just being careful, Jack."

Jack flicked his gaze down the seemingly-innocuous tunnel, fixed Skittery with a look. "Uh-huh. There something I oughtta know?"

Skittery and Boots traded glances. "They'se just little kids," Skittery said.

"So I noticed—"

"I ain't!" Dime protested, but he was ignored.

"I mean, guys like us," Skittery continued, "we'se older, we can take care of ourselves..."

"We don't want to start no trouble, Jack," Boots said. "We leave a little space to walk around him, that's all, we don't do nothing to upset him—"

"'Him'?" Jack's jaw clenched. "_David?"_


	19. XIX

The look on both Boots' and Skittery's faces confirmed it: guilt, overlaid with resolve. O'Dell ducked his gaze.

"Jack..."

"You guys think that's funny? Race would never say—"

"Race ain't said nothing," Skittery declared. "But we ain't blind, neither."

"You think he'd hurt you?" Jack took a step forward. "You seriously think that?"

Dime's mouth was hanging open; he shut it belatedly and gave a frantic jerk of his head to the younger boys. They let go of Jack's shirt, and the three of them sidled cautiously away, staying to their side of the wall.

"'Course we don't—" Boots started.

"We know you'se close," Skittery said. "Hell, we like him, too. But he drew on one of us. Like him all you want, but that don't change the fact that he _drew on one of us_."

It was true, and Jack knew it. What was keeping their new way of life stable, what was keeping them able to go out and face death in the ruined city day after day and come back to dark and cramped quarters night after night, boiled down to one thing: trust. Trust that when you climbed into a crumbling building with your teammates they would watch your back; trust that everyone shared freely whatever food or supplies they recovered; trust that no-one sold them out to rival gangs or to the water barons. Trust that not one of them would turn against another. And Jack knew damn well what last evening had at the very least _looked _like. It was all true, and yet it didn't cool his anger any.

"You don't know _shit _what you'se talkin' about, Skittery."

"Maybe." Skittery's voice rose a little. "But I know I sleep maybe five feet from him at night. That's what I needs to know."

Jack's hand shot out and seized his collar, thrusting him back against the wall. "Is it? _Look_ at him. He wouldn't lay a finger on nobody—"

"Jack!" Boots cut in. "Let him go."

Skittery made no attempt to wrench himself free; he seemed to be caught between retreating and snapping back. "I ain't making it up."

"'Course you ain't," Jack said. "And you know why?"

"I ain't—"

"'Cos it takes brains to make something up—"

"Open your eyes, Jack! We can't tell what he's thinkin' half the time and neither can you!"

"You'se saying he's thinkin' about walking up to you one day and slitting your throat? Is that what you'se saying?"

"Get off me!"

"Jack!" Boots tugged at his arm.

Jack shook him off. "I want to hear what Skittery's saying."

Skittery shoved against him, but it didn't break Jack's grip. "You don't want to hear what I gots to say _now_."

"Oh, I think I do."

"I ain't telling you again, Jack—get off me."

"Or what?" He was pushing it, he knew; but he couldn't seem to stop himself. Adrenaline was surging through his veins, and for the first time in a long time, he wasn't fighting entirely on the defensive, nor were his actions being dictated by an attack from dragons or raiders. This was his call, and he could put a halt to it, or he could let it loose—

Skittery struck out at him with a forearm, unwilling even now to bring fists into play. The blow glanced off Jack's chest. He hardly felt the pain, just the force of it, and a small part of him welcomed the motivation, the _excuse_.

Jack kept his hands clear of both the blades at his belt, but that was all. He had the advantage of weight and, with open space behind him, leverage; he threw himself forward, pinning Skittery against the wall, smacked his left palm into the brick not an inch from Skittery's head. "C'mon, Skitts. You can do better'n that."

"You'se a real bastard sometimes, Jack—"

"Come _on_."

Skittery caught him in the side, the blow an open-handed one. Jack yanked him forwards, slammed him into the wall again, hard.

He could hear yelps from the younger boys, but didn't spare them a glance, knowing they'd be smart enough to stay out of the way. Dodging the blow that Skittery threw at his chin, Jack stepped back just far enough to swing and jam his arm into the other boy's ribs, twice in rapid succession. Skittery grunted at the impact.

Jack gritted his teeth, breath coming fast. "That ain't all you got, is it—"

"That's enough." Snoddy's voice came from beside them.

Jack didn't take his eyes off Skittery, shook him roughly by his collar. "Stay outta this, Snoddy."

"That's _enough_." The barrel of the shotgun tapped Jack's leg, just above his bandaged knee. It was a warning, not a threat, but it was sufficient. Snoddy lowered his voice. "You want him to see you like this?"

He snarled and released Skittery, pushed the gun barrel aside. Only then did he look up beyond the small group to where David was.

David hadn't moved from his spot, had only half-risen to a crouch, one hand braced against the wall, both hands empty. But he was staring at Jack, at Skittery, at the knot of them standing clustered by the crates. His breathing was deep and rapid, his gaze unwavering. He looked ready to spring.

Jack made his way over to him, gently pressed him back down to a seat on the brick floor. The other boy subsided—not quite readily, but he did; and once down, stayed quiet.

"Jesus, Davey," Jack said softly.


	20. XX

Jack straightened up, feeling tension pull at his shoulders. He could tell Snoddy had trailed him partway over to David, and now stood several feet behind him: not intruding, but not going away.

Speaking over his shoulder, not looking up to meet his gaze, Jack said, "If you'se down here now, then Specs is still at the grate with Dutchy?"

"He is."

"And Flick's still down at the steps?"

"Still is."

"He the one who called you over?"

"Yeah."

Jack raked fingers through his hair. "Yeah. Who made you Chief of Police, anyway?"

"You did."

He sighed, let his shoulders slump. "I know."

Snoddy stepped closer. "The boys is nervous, Jack. We got a right to be."

"'We,' huh?"

"Yeah, _we_. I live here, too."

"If you'se gonna start—"

"I ain't starting anything, Jack. I'se just sayin' what I see."

Jack rubbed his hands over his face. The tunnel walls felt as if they were closing in, suddenly too small—if it had ever been otherwise—to contain their collective apprehension, their fear, everything that even at the best of times boiled just beneath the surface these days. He couldn't hear much movement from the rest of the boys; couldn't tell if they were listening. "You don't know what you'se seeing."

"And you do?" Snoddy took another three paces towards him, and Jack turned quickly to step in front of David, arm raised in defense. Snoddy halted. "You ain't always thinking right when it comes to—"

"Don't tell me that."

"Not since that night," Snoddy said.

"Shut up."

"If it was anybody but h—"

"Shut _up_." He pulled in deep breaths, made himself relax; willed the beginnings of a pounding headache away. The other boys were still standing by the crates, but only the younger three openly stared, full bottles and canteens temporarily forgotten.

There was silence from Snoddy for a few moments, then he said, more quietly, "If the boys start getting spooked...They gets distracted, they'se liable to start making mistakes, or worse."

"We'se spooked every goddamned day."

"Not like this."

"You said last night you wasn't worried about Dave. You knew and I knew you wasn't happy, but you said it." His jaw tightened. "To my face."

"That's right," Snoddy said. He lowered his tone even more. "This ain't just about him."

"So what do you want me to do, huh?" Jack challenged. "Put guards on him?"

"No—"

"Soak him?" His voice rose. "Throw him out?"

David flinched; the sight of it leached Jack's anger from him in an instant, and he hastily reached down to touch his fingers to David's cheek.

"It ain't that way," Snoddy said. He paused, as though he were expecting to be interrupted, but when it didn't happen, he went on. "I wasn't lyin' last night. Nobody's gonna lay a hand on him. Nobody. This ain't like that."

Jack didn't reply, didn't lift his gaze from David's bowed head.

"Jack," Snoddy said, and he sounded a little less sure now, "d'you hear me? This _ain't like that_."

He looked up at Snoddy, at the shotgun in his hands, and the way it hung loosely in his grip, muzzle nearly touching the floor. Looked at Boots and O'Dell and Skittery, saw them exchange uncertain glances, watched Skittery massaging his bruised ribs in a manner that spoke more of chagrin than resentment. Saw the younger boys still standing where they were, simultaneously spellbound and distressed, but mostly just distressed.

_If we can't even trust each other, then we're nothing._

Jack cleared his throat. "Yeah, I hear you."


	21. XXI

Jack turned to David and Les. "C'mon."

The other boys had slipped away north along Park Row, obviously opting to take their large group to the Remington offices by a more circuitous route, bypassing the crowds as much as possible. Jack weighed his choices, took the chance and led the brothers straight up Duane instead, headed for Broadway.

Two blocks north along the deserted street to where Duane met Centre and abruptly turned west, and suddenly all was seething humanity again: wagons and carriages and hundreds on foot, cries of fear and shouted orders and the shrill blast of whistles. Jack reached back and clamped his fingers around a fistful of David's shirt-front.

They pushed their way forward, every step harder than the last. A trio of men hauling bulging sacks slammed into Jack's side as they staggered past, and it was only because he didn't let go and David braced his weight at the last moment that they were able to keep each other from falling. Everywhere, people were fleeing, but there was nowhere to go.

Jack halted, jumped up onto the side of a momentarily-stalled wagon. From above the bobbing heads of passers-by he sorted through the pedestrians and spotted what he was looking for, on the other side of the roadway and a little behind them. The wagon-driver took a swipe at his head with a metal-tipped stick, but Jack ducked it easily, dropping back down to the cobblestones.

He tugged at David's shirt. "Over here."

With Les' small form sandwiched between them, they cut as best as they could across the width of Centre. It was like trying to swim across a swift-churning stream. Just outside the wide glass window of a bookshop he managed to intercept the man he'd picked out earlier, a tall heavy-set individual who was plowing his way determinedly up the street, roughly throwing aside anyone who happened to be in his path. Indignant cries sounded in his wake. Jack slid up behind him and pulled the other two boys close.

David opened his mouth as if to protest, but shut it without saying a word. Jack, for his part, was relieved that he didn't have to explain himself. The man would probably wallop them if they tried to stop him, they didn't have the time for a confrontation anyway, and if the going was a little easier now with someone else breaking the wave of people in front of them...well, who were they to question it?

Broadway was now two streets away. The three of them moved along in the trail of their unwitting benefactor, their progress slow but reasonably steady. He could feel David's palm against the small of his back, counter-balancing Jack's own pull on David's shirt so that Les wouldn't get crushed in the middle.

Shouts of alarm and pain from up ahead sent them scrambling for the curb. A loose carthorse, wild-eyed and foam-flecked, barreled down the middle of the roadway. As it passed them, Jack could see that it trailed snapped harness lines and crimson spatters behind it. Its gait was unsteady, and even as he watched, it stumbled to its left and crashed into a knot of pedestrians. Fresh cries arose as two thousand pounds of horseflesh collapsed like a brick wall. Several men sprang to its head, heaving on its bridle to get it up again while others dragged the fallen away from its thrashing hooves.

It was no use. Blood flew from the corners of its mouth as it tossed its head, but it would not regain its feet. At least no one was still trapped beneath it. Despite the barking of gunfire up ahead, no-one nearby had bullets to spare for the suffering animal. When a man stepped up to it with an iron crowbar, Jack hastily reached out and turned Les' face away.

As they started up the street again, there was a gruesome wet _crunch_ and an equine shriek. "Oh, _christ_," Jack groaned, sickened by the botched killing. Behind him, he could hear Les stifle a sob.

There was the sound of a second blow, and this time, nothing followed it.

In the rush to get out of the bolting horse's way, they'd lost the large man they'd been tailing. Vehicles and people surged back into the temporary gap that had opened for the animal, and now the boys found themselves just as hemmed in as they had been before.

Jack shouldered a young couple aside, trying not to jostle them too hard. They were almost at the next intersection, where Duane and Elm crossed each other. Surely, at the junction, the buildings to either side wouldn't feel like they were closing in so tight, and maybe they'd be able to pause just for a breath, and figure how they could get to—

He felt it almost before he heard or saw it, a giant presence in the sky. Not directly overhead, but farther downtown, above what he guessed must be the fish markets. Around him, screams were starting up.

Then—a blast of flame that could be clearly seen from this distance, as high up as the beast was. It was a long burst, so sustained that it seemed as if time itself had stopped, as if nothing else existed or would ever exist again except for a dragon shooting down fire from heaven.

There was an entire city block ablaze down at the Fulton Market. The tide of mass traffic turned sharply north.

"We can't cross this!" David hollered in his ear.

Getting to the Jacobs' home meant traversing Broadway at some point. It ran the length of Manhattan, and there was no getting around it. It might be easier to cross the farther uptown they went, but the longer they waited to do so, the more Broadway angled away to the east. It would stretch out their route, and time now was of the essence.

Nevertheless, it was clear that they had to give up the shortest course for now. They could force their way through it from here if they tried, but it would leave them stranded on the wide open space of the huge street, too exposed to the sky. "We'll go up Elm when we get to it!" Jack hoped he could be heard over the din. "Then cross when we can!"

Somehow they made it to the corner and joined the crowds on Elm. Their progress grew a little faster as they were now traveling north along with most of the rest of the throng. The dragon was staying to the south, but that made things no less calm. People still elbowed and swung at each other, and carriage-drivers cursed and cracked their whips with increasing indiscrimination.

"Help me!" It was a desperate cry from overhead. Snapping his head up, Jack saw a young woman clinging to the _outside _of a second-story window on his side of the street, a bundle clutched tightly to her breast in one arm. "My baby...please!"

"Dave!" Jack pointed upwards.

"Oh, god," David said. "Is she jumping?"

"Ma'am!" Jack waved his free arm at her.

David's eyes darted over the building. "She can't get out! The door downstairs's probably jammed with all the people around—"

"Ma'am!" Jack tried again.

They were right underneath her now. The woman was shouting something down at them, her voice lost in the tumult. "...can't hold...baby... and climb..."

Terror seized him as he saw her let the bundle fall. Mind a blank, acting purely on instinct, he pivoted to his left, let go of David and caught the plunging toddler in both arms, dropping to one knee to cushion the impact.

Breath roaring in his ears, seeing nothing but the tiny warm and moving body he held, he was only peripherally aware of the fact that she had clambered halfway down the grooved facade of the building after, and that David had reached up to help her as she jumped the remaining distance. She knelt in front of him to take her child back, tears streaming down her young face. "Oh, thank you," she choked, "thank you, sir..."

He couldn't say a word. He allowed her to take the toddler, who was wailing but seemed otherwise unhurt. By the time David pulled him to his feet and let Jack lean against him a little, woman and child had disappeared into the crowd.

"You're shaking," David told him.


	22. XXII

By the time David pulled him to his feet and let Jack lean against him a little, woman and child had disappeared into the crowd.

"You're shaking," David told him. He had one hand on Jack's arm, the other firmly gripping the back of Les' collar.

"I'se fine."

"Take a minute—"

"No." He clenched his fists, steadied them, then purposely forced his hands to relax by laying one palm fleetingly on Les' hair. He grabbed hold of David's shirt again, wondered if anything could make him let go a second time. "We keep moving."

He steered them away from the curb, and David said, "She really couldn't open the door."

"Yeah."

"She tried going out through the shop downstairs, but it was locked for the night."

It probably reassured David to know that. Jack thought about the shock of the baby's fragile weight landing in his arms, the tiny red face that had squalled its distress, and could only shake his head.

One block farther, at the corner of Worth, he hesitated. He hooked an elbow tightly around the grooved lamp-post, anchoring himself, anchoring all three of them just for the moment. The Remington offices were only one street west of this intersection. Had his boys made it? Or were they still fighting their way over here?

Or had they given up and gone somewhere else?

Or—

He glanced along Worth, torn. The building was so _close_. To get to it, however, battling against the flow, would take a great deal of time—time that the Jacobses didn't have.

He had to think. He had to do this right. They'd lost so many boys already tonight, and the thought of losing even more froze the blood in his veins like nothing else ever could.

But.

But they were a good bunch, a sharp bunch, and they knew the ins and outs of the streets as well as he. Birth mothers they all had, but it was the City herself who had raised them, and if anyone could navigate her safely now, it would be them.

He hoped so, at least. He prayed so. Because while his boys might need him, it was likely David and Les needed him _more_, and he could not choose both.

Resolutely, he continued along Elm, leaving Worth behind. He hadn't said a word about his roiling emotions, and he'd allowed his hesitation to last no longer than a dozen heartbeats, but he felt David brush his fingers briefly over the back of his neck in silent acknowledgement.

They moved forward one block, then two. He tugged at his kerchief, loosening the knot, finding it damp with the sweat that was slicking his throat. Even at this hour of the night, the summer heat was oppressive, made worse by the press of bodies and the almost tangible fear that emanated from every single one of them.

"Are we almost there?" Les said, his youthful voice dull with exhaustion. Jack would have carried him if he could, but there was too much frenzied shoving at shoulder-height and the boy was safer on the ground, shielded by his two taller companions.

"No, but we'se getting closer. Hold on, okay?"

Les didn't answer for a moment, and when he did, it was with a quavery bravado. "Okay, Jack."

David's hand left his back, and Jack sneaked a glance behind himself to see David gently wiping the wetness from his little brother's cheeks with the cuff of his sleeve.

Whistles sounded and a file of too-few National Guardsmen pushed through. The crowd parted readily for them. The polished barrels of their long rifles, topped with bayonets, bristled like a line of spears, and the eight men held their heads high. But Jack could see the looks on their faces as they passed: fear mixed with hopelessness, a grim resignation.

"Ain't there more of you?" someone bellowed.

"Why aren't you stopping them?" a woman cried.

Their leader, a heavily-mustached man with the triple-banded insignia of a sergeant major on his dusty sleeve, turned a cold glare in the direction of the voices. His men did not respond.

A little less than two years ago, Jack had stood atop one of two unmoving freight trains at Riverside Park, just off the Hudson River. Surrounded by a couple of thousand men and boys—including two dozen of his own—perched on their impromptu viewing platform, crowds on the ground below to either side of the rails as far as the eye could see, every one of them had strained to catch a glimpse of the homecoming naval parade and the men of the hour, Admiral Sampson and Rear Admiral Schley. When the _Brooklyn _had steamed into sight on the Hudson, escorted by police vessels and fireboats, the awed spectators had erupted into ecstatic cheers.

Jack could still picture her, the gigantic battleship: seeming to stretch on forever, with her three towering stacks and the big turret guns everywhere, flags flying front and rear. She had easily dwarfed everything else on the river, including her six sister warships: even the _Oregon_ and the _Texas_ and Sampson's own _New York _(names that any red-blooded boy worth his salt could rattle off his tongue). She was a fortress, a mountain, the liberation of Cuba and American power at its mightiest.

A year after that, again with his boys around him but this time with David at his side, he'd tilted back his head and whooped at the showers of brightly-colored confetti that rained down from a hot-air balloon over Grant's Tomb. The balloon and the confetti belonged to the _Journal_, to Mr. Hearst no less, and it was a minor act of treason to cheer for it but Jack didn't care. This was Admiral Dewey's own homecoming parade, the biggest damn war hero of them all: bigger than Sampson, bigger than Schley, bigger than even Teddy Roosevelt himself. The observers had gone wild at the appearance of his flagship _Olympia_, at the deafening _boom_ of her guns as she fired off her salute, and if Jack had thought the earlier celebration for Sampson impossible to top...well, that had been nothing compared to this.

That had been last September. Tonight, it was only the start of summer—and, not two hours into the attack, New York was already forgetting her heroes.

The crowd had closed up again in the wake of the small troop. Jack could see the glittering of their bayonets up ahead as they moved through pedestrians and traffic with enviable speed. He considered following them, but quickly dropped the thought. For one, they would certainly notice; and for two, he highly doubted he truly wanted to go wherever it was they were going.

Jack got the three of them moving again. Maybe they really did need to swing out eastwards and try to make better progress along the smaller streets before coming back to Broadway. But, and this was the worst part, there was absolutely no way to know. They'd already gotten this far into the thick of the crowd; if they cut their losses and withdrew now, would they gain or lose time fighting to get back in?

Some people, he saw, were starting to give up on getting anywhere in the crush and were ducking into whatever doorways were open, seeking refuge not in distance but in roofs and walls. It seemed to only barely lessen the street traffic, although Jack suspected it would have been much worse otherwise.

They'd made it another block. "We'll try the next street when we get there!" Jack called back. "If it don't work, then we try the one after that!"

And that one had better be it, Jack thought, because after _that_ was Canal Street, surely a nightmare of its own to wade through. Neither was there much hope for this upcoming intersection; from here he could already see the chaos at the corner. The ornate, steep-roofed building that stood there was the Number Thirty-one firehouse, and armed men—the same small troop, he'd bet, that had passed through earlier—patrolled in front of its three large doors, trying to keep its entranceway clear. The crowd, finding itself pushed away from that side of the street, was beginning to jam up the other.

"Jack," David said, and Jack glanced back to see him eyeing the the nearest storefront, "can we cut _through _a building?"

"You mean, go in the front door—"

"—and out the back."

Truth be told, Jack had been avoiding the idea without even realizing it, after seeing that young mother and her child get trapped in their own home. But it was a newsboy's trick, a street-rat's hidden ace, to employ shortcuts. It was almost a relief to imagine it now: finding an unlocked door or a broken window, flying down blessedly-empty halls, sprinting through a courtyard, slipping easily out the other side. Too many routes, however, involved fire escapes and rooftop runs, which were completely out of the question now.

Jack shook his head. "Not on this block! Ain't all these buildings here got back doors! Get to the corner—"

"Cut through the corner," David finished his thought, pivoting so that he was between Les and a pair of quarreling men who reeked of rotgut. "If we look for—"

Cries of terror broke out from behind them, and Jack spun to see necks craned back, fingers jabbing upwards. He couldn't even make it out at first, the towering spire of Trinity at the south end of Broadway rising beyond the reach of the city's lights, all but invisible against the night sky.

Then there was a movement in the blackness, the unfurling of dark wings.


	23. XXIII

Then there was a movement in the blackness, the unfurling of dark wings. Without warning, the dragon leapt from the church spire, diving swiftly towards the packed street and the illumination of the lamps.

Jack's mind barely had time to register the size of the monster and the speed with which it was approaching before he turned and struck out for the nearest cast-iron storefront. He didn't need a closer look at at the dragon—it was big and it was headed this way, and that was all he needed to know. Being caught out in the open like this was sure death. Behind him, David pulled Les up into his arms, and Jack let go only long enough to shift his grip to David's shoulder.

People were smashing the glass in the large shop windows on the first floor. The three boys, having been among the first to move towards it, had managed to slip through the throng to get within five yards of the storefront. Jack saw the window give way, saw people frantically begin to push their way through it.

But as rapidly as the influx had begun, cries and commotion rose at the front. There was resistance coming now from those at the window, though it only barely slowed the rush of those still in the street.

Jack's first thought was that those who'd already gotten in were attempting to claim the space for themselves and keep everyone else out. But the cries didn't sound like anger; they sounded like fear—and pain—

That was enough. Inviting as the solidity of the cast-iron edifice was, whatever was happening there, he wanted no part of it. He took a swift glance around the block, reversed direction and headed towards a sturdy-looking brick building instead, sandwiched between two others and only three stories high. David did not protest the sudden change, only followed readily.

The building's wooden front door was already beginning to buckle beneath the blows of two men and their hob-nailed boots. The sign that swung from an iron rod to one side of the entranceway proclaimed this business to be the acounting firm of "Nathaniel & Dunton."

Jack yanked both of his companions up against the building's facade. "Stay here!" he told them, and stepped away to jump and grab hold of the iron rod, putting all his weight on it. The bracket which held it to the wall gave, mortar beginning to crumble, but only a little. Cursing, he wrenched at it again. A second pair of hands joined his, and together he and another man succeeded in tearing it free. "Here!" Jack called, and passed the rod quickly to one of those at the door. The man punched it through the splintering wood three times in rapid succession, effectively severing the lock from the remainder of the door.

Two blocks south of them on the next street over, there was a roar of fire and Broadway, oh god, Broadway itself and all those on it were burning. Jack wasted no time grabbing David and Les and shoving them through the now-cleared entrance.

Dozens streamed in after. The orange-yellow light that rose from behind the buildings across the street cast wild shadows through the office windows onto the cabinets and back wall.

David ducked behind the nearest desk, dragging Jack down with him. By unspoken accord, they wedged Les into the corner formed by the desk and a tall oak bookcase and set themselves between him and the rest of the rapidly-filling office. Jack tipped the stuffed leather chair onto its side and pulled it back towards them. It made a pitiful sort of barrier, but it was better than nothing. David brushed several long sharp splinters from Jack's hair.

"Too much paper in here," David panted into his ear. "One spark—"

"I know." He gestured helplessly; there was nowhere left to go. "Maybe them brick walls'll buy us some time."

"If we stay near the door, we have a chance of getting out if..." David glanced over his shoulder at Les. "If anything happens."

Being near the door sure as shit hadn't helped any of the boys at the Lodging House, but Jack kept his mouth shut. From the look on David's face, he knew it too.

David turned and pointed upwards at the bookcase just behind Les. "The heavy stuff on the high shelves—we've got to get them down, they'll fall—"

"I'll get 'em," Jack said, shooting to his feet before David could finish. There was a matched pair of large china vases and a foot-high clock that looked like marble but felt like iron. He took them down, shoved them to one side, and reached back up for the huge bound volumes—

A crash of glass and screams made him spin to see the office's front window burst inwards in a shower of shards. He dropped immediately back to the floor, pulling David with him just as the latter snatched something from the desk drawer he'd been rifling through.

The press of pedestrians outside had breached the window, and people were scrambling in through the new opening. But the screaming did not abate, and now Jack had a terrible first-hand glimpse of what must have happened at the first building. The hole in the shattered window gaped like jaws; the panic of the mob was forcing those up front against the jagged edges of glass. The hapless victims resisted with all their waning strength, but the push was relentless. Deep gashes opened up, red flesh and the white glint of bone. Shrieks of anguish and the thick smell of blood filled the air. Jack pulled up his shirt collar, breathed through it as shallowly as possible.

There was a woman at the bottom of the pile who had stopped crying out. Jack hastily looked away when he realized he'd been staring straight into her lifeless eyes.

Three men lifted a table, tilted and rammed it, top-first, against the hole in the window, against those trying to get in, forming a crude seal. Another man got up and added his weight to theirs, fighting to keep the table from being pushed back again, their boots skidding across the now-slippery hardwood floor. Jack wanted to join them, but to his mortification he couldn't get his legs to obey.

David had one arm around Les, his free hand gripping a pearl-handled letter opener.

Then table and window were forgotten as a tremendous impact shook the building. It rattled objects on shelves and pictures on the walls, jarred polished filing-cabinet drawers open; David pushed his little brother into the small space beneath the desk.

The table was thrown aside, no match for the renewed panic in the street. Near to the front of the office as the boys were, there were now so many people packed into the space that it looked impossible to get out that way. The lamps on the sidewalk flickered out, plunging the building into darkness, save for the light from the fires on Broadway.

"We're gonna die!" someone wailed, voice so distorted by fear that Jack couldn't even tell if the speaker was male or female. "Oh Lord, oh Lord, we're gonna—"

"Shut your mouth!" someone else bellowed.

Les had been quiet this entire time, but now Jack could hear him whimpering, could hear David trying to soothe him. Jack started to turn towards them, when—

"It's on fire!"

"Oh my god!"

"Get out of the way!"

Jack rose to a half-crouch, peered over the desk. Through a chance gap in the crowd outside he caught what looked like a pair of horses plowing through the packed street, their path erratic, hooked to a surrey whose seats and top were streaked with flames. If there was anyone inside, they couldn't possibly be still alive.

It was an emissary of destruction. Fires rose up behind it, touched off by the burning surrey: other vehicles and pedestrians, buildings and signs. Something on the shop across the way had ignited, possibly the awning. The front door was out of the question now, even if they could get to it; the street was rapidly becoming aflame. It was spreading, too, as stricken vehicles took off in their own directions.

David appeared at his shoulder, took in the situation at a glance. "We've got to leave _now_."

"Maybe we ought to stay," Jack said, "we ain't burning—"

"Yet. If we wait, the fire'll surround us."

They couldn't go out the front of the office and, as it shared walls with the adjoining buildings, there were no side windows. Jack turned and stared into the depths of the room, trying to see past the crowd and the jumping shadows.

"There." He pointed them out to David. Two doors along the back wall. Perhaps they were nothing more than storerooms, but one of them might be a back door...

David was already bending to retrieve Les. "It's hot," the boy sniffled, the first words of complaint he'd spoken all night.

David lifted him quickly to his feet. "I know. We'll be out in a minute."

Together, hanging on to each other as before, the three of them forced their way through to the nearer door. Jack pushed it open into blackness. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but the sight of it only confirmed what the space beyond the door had already felt like: a small back room, jammed with files, and no way out.

One last chance. Jack vaulted a desk, elbowed people aside, climbed over others. He grabbed hold of the knob and twisted just as another giant crash sounded outside, the shock reverberating through the brick walls. Framed prints dropped from their hooks and full bookcases rocked dangerously, sending their contents smashing onto the floor and onto those huddled there, a ghastly cacophony.

He shoved it open and felt a stab of despair as the doorway revealed only more musty darkness. But then a flare of firelight lit up the interior clearly, and he found himself gazing at a flight of stairs.

It led upward, the last direction they wanted to go.

Before he could draw breath to ask David or point out the stairs to the rest of the people trapped in the office with them, the decision was taken out of his hands. What was left of the broken window crumpled and flew inwards as the rear corner of a blazing wagon careened into the building's facade. Sparks flew from the wreck, igniting spilled paper files on the floor.

"This way!" Jack hollered to the room at large and bolted up the stairs, David and Les at his heels. Obstacles clogged the way, treacherous in the unlit stairwell: old cabinets and long pieces of lumber, taller than Jack, leaning against the walls. At the second-floor landing he threw open the door and headed for the windows. A fire escape sat just outside the center one, but it only led down into the conflagration below.

Flames were already licking up the side of the building. People surged onto the second floor and Jack tried to warn them back, but couldn't stop the headlong rush for the windows. David hunched over Les, shielding him from a man who swung his walking-stick left and right in his fight to reach the fire escape, taking the blows on his own shoulders instead. Fingers aching from their tight grasp on David's shirt, Jack thrust the man aside before David could bring up the blade of the letter-opener, and pulled the brothers back towards the stairwell.

It was filling with smoke. Choking on the heat and the grimy air, they dashed towards the third floor, intending to bypass it, heading for the roof. Les yelped as he lost his footing in the dark just below the landing, slipping down three steps behind them. Only David's grip on his arm as he dangled there prevented him from tumbling the rest of the way.

Then another massive shock wracked the building to its foundations. Beams and pipes snapped overhead and heavy objects banged down the stairwell; screams rang up through it, were abruptly cut off. Jack had an awful vision of the second floor collapsing.

No time left. He hauled at David, started up the final flight towards escape.

David did not move.


	24. XXIV

David did not move.

Faced with rising heat and a new roar of fire from downstairs that lit up the stairwell bright as any lamp, Jack pulled at him again out of sheer reflex before he could stop himself. He whirled to ask David what was wrong—

David's arm was still outstretched; it had been only seconds since he'd arrested Les' fall down the stairs. Les himself was still sprawled belly-down on the steps, his older brother's fingers clamped about his wrist.

Jack's horrified gaze took in the long, severed pipe that jutted at an angle from the young boy's back, just below his right shoulderblade. Silhouetted by the flames below, Les' small face was nothing but an indistinct smudge...but the line of the pipe continued beneath him, embedded into the wooden step.

David screamed.

Before Jack could stop him, David tore himself free and leaped down to his brother's side. The way Les' head lolled when David cradled it in both hands told the whole story, and the last traces of Jack's hope vanished. By the time he scrambled over to them, David was feverishly attempting to pry the pipe loose.

It was no use. The thick, hollow length of lead had been driven straight into the stair beneath, straight through flesh and bone, both metal and wood darkened by more than just shadow. And besides that, oh god, it was far too late.

Jack yanked David to the wall side of the stairs as others—too few of them—pounded their way past, some taking their chances with the third floor, others going higher. Steam hissed from ruptured pipes overhead. Jack blinked sweat from his eyes, spoke through gritted teeth. "Davey—we gotta go."

"No! I have to—I have to get him out—"

Jack hooked an arm around his waist, dragged him bodily up one step, then another. "The place is falling apart! Come on!"

Heedlessly, David grabbed at the railing to stop them. Jack knocked his hand away. Oily black smoke rolled up the stairwell, threatening to swallow them whole, and Jack redoubled his efforts. "Come on!"

David let himself be pulled. Coughing, half-blinded, they both made it the final flight and through the opened door to the roof of the office building. Out here, the summer air was still tainted by soot, but it was fresh and nearly chilled compared to what it had been like inside. On the street below, the chaos looked and sounded worse than it had the last time they'd looked out the office's windows: less full of people, more full of destruction.

Being up here, exposed to the sky, felt like announcing their presence with a megaphone; but there was nowhere else to go. The roof of the building directly to their right was too high to reach; the one on the other side was only one story taller. A thick, dark line along one wall turned out to be a drainpipe. Jack could just see someone disappearing over the roof's edge. "Hey!" he shouted after the man—maybe they'd found a route down—but there was no response. As far as he could tell, he and David were the only two left.

"We'se going up there." He caught David's face in his hands, stared into glassy blue eyes, watched them sharpen again. "You hear me?"

David nodded. "Yes."

Jack crouched next to the drainpipe, lacing his fingers together. David stepped up into his palms and Jack boosted him as high as he was able. David scrabbled for a handhold on the brick and metal, pulled himself up and over. Kneeling, he turned and reached back down for Jack.

Jack leaped for the pipe, hooked his fingers into the brackets anchoring it to the wall. The rough edges bit into his skin as they took his weight. He pushed against the brick with his boots, found the next bracket and the next, and then David was pulling on his arm and the back of his collar, helping him over the foot-high ledge that ran around the edge of the roof.

David was staring past Jack's shoulder. Jack looked back, saw smoke and flames shooting up through the door to the office-building's roof. He felt David stiffen, but before he could say anything, David was already turning away, searching for a way down.

They found it, at the opposite corner: the fourth-floor landing of the fire escape. "Go," Jack said. David lowered himself off the edge, hanging on with both hands, then dropped the rest of the way to the platform. Jack swung one leg over the low ledge, and froze.

From this vantage point, four stories up, he could just barely see into Broadway through narrow gaps between buildings. Only a few blocks south of here, a wall of flesh among walls of brick and stone, crouched the enormous bulk of a dragon.

It seemed to take up the entire roadway. Strangely, despite the scores of illustrations of dragons that had flooded the papes since April, he was reminded of nothing so much as an engraving that had run in the _Journal_ a couple of years ago, long before any of this had started: an artist's imagining of a long-necked dinosaur rising on its hind legs and peering into the upper floors of the New York Life Building, conceived of and drawn and chuckled at in the certainty that it was purely fanciful. One of the boys had torn it out and it had gotten passed around the Lodging House, greeted with incredulous laughter.

He had never thought to see such a thing come to life. Its back was to him; he could see the giant folded wings with their deceptively thin membranes, could see the ridges of its curving spine. Its head was down.

It was feeding.

"Jack!" David shouted.

He hurriedly jumped down, and David braced him as he landed. The broken window beside the fire escape was evidence that other escapees had gone inside. Pure instinct impelled him to duck into the safety of the new building after them—what if the dragon raised its head? what if another appeared?—but memory checked his movement, told him that brick walls had been no deterrent when the infamous Peet, Rogers fire had burned through to its neighboring structures. _Fireproof _and it had burned through anyway. Going in and fumbling their way down another dark staircase might just be their undoing.

He grabbed David's elbow, halted his restless pacing. "Down," he said, and David did not argue. They ran down the ringing iron steps two at a time, swinging themselves around at the landings. There was fire on the ground at this cross-street, but not so much that they wouldn't be able to weave their way through it. The railing grew hot at the first floor, and a glimpse through the window confirmed Jack's earlier fears: this building was ablaze as well.

Jack vaulted over the rail to the sidewalk as soon as they had descended far enough to land properly; David followed just after. Jack grabbed his arm and steered them swiftly across the roadway, skirting a burning wagon and the charred remains of a horse. The firehouse on the corner was already beginning to fall victim to its own nemesis. He headed northeast—crossing Broadway anywhere close to here was out of the question. They'd have to take the long way around, cutting through the smaller streets.

It wasn't until after three blocks and an alley, and the angry firelight had given way to the paler glow of the street-lamps, that Jack finally slowed them down. He'd had a stitch in his side for the past two blocks and had ignored it, but now the pain was fierce. Aside from that, their scorched lungs hadn't been given a chance to recover, and every breath felt like sandpaper in his throat.

"Stop," he panted, "stop. Just for a minute."

David only shook his head.

Jack had to physically tow him to a halt; the muscles of David's arm were painfully taut beneath his hand. "One minute. Half a minute."

"I can't," David said, voice so hoarse Jack almost didn't recognize it. "I just—I don't know—I just can't stop or I'll—"

"You gotta." And Jack knew why he wouldn't, knew just as well that he had to. "Half a minute. Listen to you."

"No—"

"You'se gonna drop—"

"I _can't_," David repeated brokenly, the last word crumbling to a whisper. His eyes were wide, far too bright in the lamplight. Jack quickly pulled him close as his knees gave out, let David muffle his screams against his shoulder.

_Oh god, oh god...Les._ Jack tilted his head back against the wooden wall behind him, fought to keep his composure. That hadn't entirely been sweat that he'd blinked out of his eyes earlier, back in the inferno of the stairwell.

_So what d'you say, Les? You want to sell papes with me?_

_Yeah!_

He shuddered, felt David's tears damp and hot through his shirt collar, refused to add any of his own. Not now, not while there were still miles to go. Leaning away from the wall so that David wouldn't scrape his knuckles bloody against the rough surface, he found himself supporting nearly all of his partner's weight. He rubbed unsteady circles over David's back, murmured words that didn't always make it past the tightness in his chest, offered what comfort he could.

It wasn't, he knew, very much at all.


	25. XXV

_Author's Notes:_

_Historical footnotes for chapters XV to XXIV are at_

_ldhenson. livejournal. com/ 136396. html_

_(Remove the spaces.) There's a link to the footnotes from earlier chapters on that page as well._

* * *

He leaned over to Bumlets. "I'se gonna take a walk down to the end and back."

"Sure, Jack."

He picked up one of the lanterns and moved towards the curving section of the tunnel behind them. There wasn't far to go. They kept the night watch at about the midway point of the tunnel, reasoning that any sort of threat or breach could be easily spotted from here. There was no need to post anyone all the way down at the ventilation shaft, so close to the pitch-blackness that lurked outside.

Carefully, he picked his way among the sleeping boys, keeping as silent as possible. He'd half-closed the shutter on the lamp, and the yellow light picked out details here and there: a shiny silver teacup left on the floor (he nudged it to the side), a blanket so ragged it was more holes than thread, a little pile of sand carelessly dumped from someone's shoe.

Further on, the light gleamed dully, a small warning, off a slender metal case wedged between Specs' shoulder and the wall. Everyone knew to give that gleam wide berth, mindful of the fragile lenses stored within it. Both Specs and Dutchy shared the case, though after the first frantic week of "I thought you had it," "No, I thought _you_ had it," they had apparently mutually agreed that it should stay with Specs. It was true they had two spare pairs each, painstakingly scrounged for and reconstructed from the ruins of several others and stowed away in a wooden breadbox padded with scraps, but they were taking no chances. Sharing the case meant sharing sleeping space: Dutchy was curled at his other side, bright hair spilling across the sleeve of Specs' once-white shirt.

Most of the younger boys were piled in the middle of the passage, taking advantage of the fact that there they could be surrounded on all sides by something other than just the cold iron plating of the walls.

Dime cracked an eye open at Jack's approach and just as quickly shut it again, obviously not wanting to be found awake. Jack stifled a sigh, let it go. It wasn't as though Dime hadn't seen his share of fights, even in his eight short years. Life on the streets, even back then, had never been anything in the way of easy; life in the Lodging House, with its simple but strict rules and its soap and hot water, had often succeeded in making the boys only _appear_ well-scrubbed. And what had happened earlier today had hardly been anything compared to the scrapes they'd gotten up to in the past.

Things were different now, though, when your world was contracted to a couple hundred feet of (so-called) sanctuary, with terror waiting just beyond. Conflict now meant conflict trapped in a narrow tunnel, nerves rubbed raw by close proximity.

There was a space around David, an empty channel of caution, down here where they could ill-afford empty space. He was lying on his back and his eyes were open; they hadn't been an hour ago when Jack had cautiously risen and moved away to begin his shift.

Jack crouched down. "You sleeping?" he whispered.

At first it seemed as if David wasn't even going to acknowledge the question, then something crept into his expression, a flicker of incredulousness.

Good. Jack shifted his weight a little, quietly eased some of the pressure off his aching knee. "Ain't much to look at up there," he went on conversationally. "Take it from me, I know. It's iron plates up top same as it's iron on the walls. Then there's them pieces that go right across—" He gestured upward at the grid of iron ribs that strengthened the walls at this end of the tunnel; bands that ringed the walls intersected with other reinforcements running lengthwise, so that the whole was as though the skeleton of some strange ship had been upended over their heads. The arc of each rib was divided by the intersections into shorter curves of unequal lengths, disconcertingly asymmetrical from the left wall to the right. "They'se the worst. You think to yourself, they look like they oughta all be the same, 'cos why wouldn't you make 'em that way? But no matter how hard you stares, you can't make 'em right, can't make 'em match up. If you stares at 'em too long you starts to forget where the middle of the ceiling really is, and you feel like you'se gonna slide right off the floor."

David's eyes drifted closed again. Jack glanced down the tunnel towards Bumlets and Digger at their post. Supper this evening had been the usual busy affair, but now, in the stillness of the watch, the strain in the atmosphere had resurfaced.

"You don't gotta," Snoddy had told him earlier, when he'd volunteered to spell somebody for the night shift. He'd done it partly to make up for abandoning his post earlier that day, and they both knew it. Not that he'd said so, not that Snoddy had said so, but Jack had stated, "Yeah, I do," and Snoddy had not objected again, only nodded and replied that he could swap with Bumlets, or Digger, or Race.

And, with outward indifference, Jack had watched surreptitiously as Race shrugged when Snoddy passed the news to him, and that was all.

He looked back at David, who was staring at the ceiling again.

"Go on," Jack whispered, "go back t'sleep."

David only shook his head.

"Shut your eyes then." He hesitated, then leaned a little closer and added, "'S already almost four."

_And only about an hour 'til my shift's done_ was the remainder of the sentence, and he didn't say it aloud, but after another moment David gave in.

Jack noiselessly regained his feet, joined the other two guards. Bumlets and Digger, at opposite walls, were idly tossing between them a ball of wadded-up waxed paper wound with rubber bands. They spared him a glance as he took a seat to one side of them. The ball flew lazily back and forth; it made a soft, rhythmic _chuk...chuk _as the two boys caught and lobbed it back again, and he let his gaze and thoughts spin out into the darkness beyond the lamps.

It was no good; it all led back to one thing. Just because David didn't always react didn't mean he wasn't always listening, and they'd forgotten that today, Jack himself included. Hadn't exactly been their finest hour, standing around and arguing over him this morning as though he weren't even there. Or worse yet—as though he _were_ there, but not in any way that really mattered.

It mattered. Of course it did. Even if David wasn't the David Jack had known; even if he might never be, again.

No. Jack bit down hard on that line of thought.

His gaze dropped to his hands, which, he discovered, had started to pick apart the corner of the Bowie's canvas sheath, worrying the tough stitching loose while his mind and eyes were elsewhere. He let go of it, sternly reminding himself that he'd done enough damage of the sort to the sheath of his regular knife already. And that the main reason he hadn't gotten around to repairing it yet was that he wasn't sure he could successfully wield a needle and thread without fatally skewering himself.

_I...don't think that would help, _David would have probably stated wryly, had he been around to see it, even if he would have only said it in Jack's head. Whether David would have meant the loose thread-picking, or Jack stabbing himself with the needle, was up for debate.

Something small and brown flew at his head and he instinctively shied to one side, and the ball bounced lightly off his shoulder instead. He glanced up. Digger looked worried, but Bumlets' smile was easy and downright infectious. Jack stared expressionlessly at the ball for a long moment, long enough for Digger to clear his throat in nervousness, then without warning Jack scooped up the missile and threw it back, hard. Bumlets flung his hands up in mock alarm, and the crumpled paper smacked harmlessly into his palms.

"Numbskull," Jack grumbled, just loud enough to be heard. Bumlets only smiled all the wider.

Jack relaxed a little, biting back a grin, scooting over to lean against the wall near the dark-haired boy. The game resumed and he declined to join in, but that was all right.


	26. XXVI

A few minutes passed, and Bumlets stopped suddenly, hand raised in mid-toss. "Didja hear that?"

"No—"

"Hear what?"

"At the front door," Bumlets said.

"I didn't—" Digger started, but Bumlets cut him off.

"Shh!"

Jack heard it now, the sound unmistakable. Dogs barking, loud and excited. "They'se chasing something."

They exchanged grim looks. Anything aboveground that made a lot of noise, especially at night, tended not to survive long. The barking was getting more strident, headed in their direction. Noise drew attention, and if noise was right near them...

Jack grabbed for the shotgun propped against the wall and the three extra shells and jumped to his feet, knowing the other two would bring a lantern in his wake. He hadn't the faintest idea what he was going to do with it; some vague notion about scaring the dogs off, but they only had five shells total remaining and he wasn't about to waste them.

Then again, when it came to the dogs, it wasn't always a waste.

Bumlets and Digger trotted to catch up with him, both carrying lanterns. "What'se you gonna do, Jack?" Bumlets whispered.

"I'll tell yous in a minute."

They'd reached the ventilator. More barks sounded from the far end, even through the brass panel. Jack climbed up and slid it aside. The sound of scuffling drifted down to them, and the tiny noises of gravel falling through the grating and rattling along the masonry, audible even at the other end of the ventilator's nearly eighty-foot length. He traded the gun for the lantern and a mirror, flashed the beam of light as high as it would go.

Nothing but darkness. He turned to the other two, retrieved the gun. "Digger, you stay down here. Bumlets, you'se with me, and bring the lamp."

He pulled himself up into the shaft and made his way along it, pressing against one wall so that the other boy could shine the light past him as much as possible. They climbed higher; the light that reflected off the mirror showed the ventilator's rough interior and not much else, and it was disconcerting to ascend through a narrow passage, unable to see much before or behind you, while growling rumbled from above and steadily grew closer.

And then he saw it—the bars of the grating, and twin glowing points in the blackness beyond. He gripped the shotgun tighter. With a feline hiss the points vanished, to be replaced by ones distinctly larger and set farther apart. Bared fangs glistened in the light. Behind Jack, Bumlets stifled an exclamation.

The dog was big. It was half-starved, its ribs showing through the matted fur that hung in mangy patches on its hide, but that didn't change the fact that the front paws resting on the grating were tipped with large claws, nor the fact that its limbs were stout and its jaws looked like they could crack saplings. It snarled down through the grating at the new threat, black lips writhing back from sharp teeth. Thick saliva dripped onto Jack's shoulder.

What the dragons hadn't killed, fighting amongst the dogs themselves had; and what was left were the huge ones, the feral ones, unafraid of man and half-crazed with hunger. There weren't many; Jack thought others must have escaped to more rural places, because it just seemed the sort of thing a dog would do—these were the ones that for some reason or another refused to leave the city. There weren't many, but they roamed the streets in packs...and they hunted.

Jack banged on the grating with his forearm, but the sound didn't faze the animal. It snapped at him, jaws closing a mere inch from the bars. Jack quickly pulled back, and it leaped directly onto the grating, a challenge booming from deep in its chest. In the lamplight, its eyes shone yellow-white.

A chorus of growls rose up around it; as Jack had figured from the sounds he'd heard below, it wasn't alone. He counted at least another three pairs of eyes. There might even be more, waiting outside the carriage.

The dogs couldn't get in, but they were bound to attract attention. The lead animal's claws scraped across the bars as it shifted its weight, and Jack winced at the screech of metal.

He hefted the shotgun to his shoulder, thumbed back the hammer. The dog started, seemed to hesitate, and Jack's hopes rose for a moment as the animal obviously recognized the sound. But hunger won out and the dog lunged down to snap at him again, foul breath and spittle blowing into Jack's face.

Jack took careful aim, not wanting the shot to rebound off the bars, and deliberately thumbed back the second hammer. This time the dog did not even flinch.

He squinted down the barrel of the weapon. Five shells left.

Four shells, if he pulled the trigger.

He uncocked the gun, reversed his grip, and slammed the butt of it up through the bars, right into the dog's massive chest.

It growled but jumped away, off the grating. The impact of the blow jarred Jack's arms to the shoulders. He pulled back, waited until the dog leaped at the opening again, and punched the gun through a second time.

He only caught it on the flank, the shotgun's wooden stock striking more skin than bone. It was enough, however: the dog retreated, and did not approach again.

There was the sound of scraping, and the carriage's frame was banged several times. The glowing pairs of eyes disappeared one by one. Jack held his breath, listening, until the noise of the dogs leaving died away. The street grew silent again.

"Way to go, Cowboy," Bumlets whispered, "I—"

Screams broke out below them, shockingly loud even at this distance. The two of them scrambled back down the shaft, almost tumbling in their haste to reach the bottom. Digger was no longer waiting for them at the entrance.

"I'll close up!" Bumlets told him. "Go!"

Jack left him the lantern and sprinted through the dark tunnel towards the sleeping area. He was met halfway by Snoddy, who stopped Jack's rush with a hand on his arm, and shook his head.

"One of the kids woke up screaming. Fizzer or Puley, didn't catch which. Said something about dogs—"

"There was dogs upstairs," Jack panted. "They'se gone now."

Everyone was awake, boys muttering to each other and knuckling sleep from their eyes, but the commotion was dying down. Digger was filling Snoddy in on what had happened. Dutchy and Mush had gathered Puley up and seemed to be succeeding, gradually, in quieting him. Fizzer sat nearby, on the verge of tears and clearly trying not to be.

"Ain't no dogs here," Mush was saying.

"I heard 'em!"

"They ain't in here," Mush repeated. "They can't squeeze through them tiny spaces between the bars, now can they? An' if they did, then they'd make themselves real flat dogs, wouldn't they? Right, Dutch?"

"Right. Flat like...pancakes," Dutchy affirmed.

"You ain't scared of pancake dogs, now is you?"

Fizzer snickered despite himself, and Puley sniffled. "No..."

David was sitting bolt upright; Jack dropped to one knee in front of him, grabbed hold of his shoulders. "Dave, look at me." He shook David a little, stomach twisting at the blank look in David's eyes, the pallor of his skin. "That was Puley, not...That was _Puley_, you got me? And he's all right. He's all right now. Look, he ain't upset no more."

He turned David so he could see, though god knew what David was seeing right now. Jack could guess; he'd revisited the scenario often enough, and it never really got easier, even after three months. Les hadn't screamed, had never had the chance to scream—but sometimes, in the dead of night, that made no difference.

"It's all right, Dave," he said, "he ain't scared no more. He ain't scared no more."

And when David finally blinked wetly and met his gaze, Jack had to clench his jaw tight to keep the words from coming out because right then, _right then,_ he couldn't trust his voice at all.

"Come on," he managed at last, when he'd taken a few deep breaths. "If you'se gonna stare at the ceiling the rest of the night, you might as well come stare at the ceiling over by the watch-post, yeah?"


	27. XXVII

"'S been five days," Bumlets said.

Bailey gave a snort of derision. "So what? It's just a damn cat." Bumlets shot him a look, but it was Blink who popped him smartly on the back of the head, sending him reeling forward. "What the—?"

"Shut up," Blink told him.

"He ain't stopped yappin' about that cat," Bailey protested. "Nobody wants to tell 'im, but we all know it's dead anyhow—"

"You'se new," Blink said, leaning in, "so I'se gonna give you a little advice. One of us wants to talk about cats, you let us talk about cats."

Bumlets had taken to worrying about the hunted cat they'd seen the night the dogs had come. It was nice to think that in running off the predators, they might have saved the prey; realistically, however, odds were the thing had been caught sooner or later. Just because hadn't been any blood near the grating aboveground as far as they could see only meant the dogs hadn't caught it close by, and no one on the night watch had heard any sign of it since.

Mush tugged warningly at the back of Blink's collar. "Kid..."

He ignored Mush, but didn't shake him off. "One of us wants to talk about pigeons, or goldfish, or the price of tea in China, you let us talk about it, got it?"

"It's just he ain't shut up about it," Bailey grumbled, but he knew he was outnumbered, and subsided.

Blink let Mush steer him to another topic, and Jack, seeing that the argument wasn't going to escalate, merely held his tongue. Everyone's nerves, it seemed, were on edge: they'd been stuck indoors most of the day, and this was the fourth day in a row they hadn't been able to bring in enough water from the pipes. Now the reserves that they stored down here were almost completely gone.

He, Snoddy, and Specs were sorting through the small pile of valuables they'd collected over the weeks. They'd already set aside a few likely items: a watch chain with a cigar cutter attached, a pair of gold cufflinks whose intricate patterns didn't _quite_ match if you looked too closely, a heart-shaped locket engraved with swirling leaves. A box of cream-colored writing-paper and envelopes, miraculously undamaged. A large sterling-silver spoon whose bowl was wide and shallow, with an elaborate scalloped edge; none of the boys were entirely sure what it was good for, but general consensus held that it was too unevenly-shaped to eat with and too big to be a sugar shell. "I heard them rich snobs have 'em to dish out berries with," someone had suggested, though the boys remained mystified as to why anyone needed a fancy utensil just to dish out berries when fingers did the job perfectly well.

"He is!"

"No he ain't!"

Jack glanced up at the little shoving match. "Fizzer, Puley, knock it off."

Figuring what was likely to be accepted and what they could afford to pay—that was the tricky part. What was valuable now was no longer what had simply been expensive in the old days. The need to scavenge meant that the worth of most items was reduced to sheer practicalities; it meant the boys drank everyday water out of not only tin mugs and collapsible tumblers but also out of quadruple-plated etched silver teacups lined in gold.

Food, shoes, medical supplies, knives...those had never come cheap before, but they were dear now. Jack wasn't about to trade away any of those, however, particularly not the last. Knives could fetch you plenty of stuff in return, but the price of arming your enemies simply wasn't worth it.

Someone pulled at the back of his sleeve. "Cowboy?"

He turned to see Fizzer's small form standing there, Puley just behind him. "Something you need, kid?"

"No..."

Jack took in their uneasy expressions, set down a blue porcelain bowl that was too chipped to trade. "Uh-huh."

Fizzer and Puley fidgeted, exchanged looks. "You ask 'im."

"No, you."

"No, you—"

"_Somebody _ask me," Jack growled.

Jack's mock irritation seemed to relax them a little, and Fizzer took a deep breath. "What we wants to know is..." He trailed off, and Puley nudged him. "Is old man Pulitzer really, you know, up...there?"

What, this again? "Somebody tell you that?" Jack said.

"Everybody says..."

Everybody says, Jack knew. Everybody says, when you'se running across the street or the Park to get back home before dark, don't look up at the _World_ Building too close. 'Cos if you looks too hard you might see _him_ and believe me you don't wanna.

The building loomed over nearly everything else on Park Row; it was almost impossible not to see it. Its brightly-gilded dome had been designed to draw the gaze, and it still did—perhaps even more so, now that it had been crushed, its broken edges arcing upward in silhouette like claws reaching for the heavens. The boys whispered that Pulitzer was still there in his once-lavish office beneath that dome, maybe just visible through the windows, that shadow there, staring down onto the street with cold, dead eyes...

"He ain't," Jack said firmly.

"B-but...they says his ghost..."

If you avoided staring at the _World_, then you also avoided staring to its left, for there sat the terminal of the Brooklyn Bridge, its Park Row staircases and glass roof collapsed, one of its trains thrown forward the length of the platform to lie smashed on the street below. That Bridge was nearly a mile of nothing but straight-line terror-choked running, open to the sky and just begging for death. Even its cable-car lanes were no good, their steel framework providing far too little cover. The pair of dragons that had been circling over the East River last evening only served to drive that point home; no-one had dared venture out for more than half an hour today.

Not that you'd ever, ever try to cross it anyway. On many days, a haze of black smoke hung ominously above Long Island, an unnatural bank of thunderheads on the eastern horizon.

"Ain't no such thing as ghosts." At their unconvinced looks, Jack added, "Look, if you sees one, you send him on to me, okay? I'll soak him for ya." That seemed to mollify them a little, and Jack jabbed gently at Fizzer with his elbow. "Go on, now. Some of us got work to do."

Snoddy was holding up an automatic pencil, the small kind a lady might carry. "Save this for later?"

Jack turned back from watching the kids leave. "There lead in it?"

Snoddy twisted it open. "Yeah."

"Save it." He reached over and plucked the cigar-cutter from the array of items. "And we ain't giving 'em this, neither."

"It ain't like you can really attack anybody with that—" Specs started.

Jack shook his head, returned the cutter to the "keep" pile. "Trust me."

His fingers hesitated over the locket. He picked it up and weighed it in his hand a moment, then snapped it open and glanced at the tiny photograph inside. A dark-haired young woman, her face framed by an elegant lace collar, smiled prettily out at him. The necklace was a woman's, so the portrait was possibly that of a sister or daughter, or perhaps the locket belonged to the girl herself, given as a keepsake to some sweetheart. When they'd dug it out of the ruins of a carriage two months ago, half the boys—himself included, he had to admit—had entertained the vague, romantic notion of someday finding that girl and returning it to her.

He let the locket's fine chain slide through his fingers. The piece of jewelry held no practical value, but a picture of a pretty girl might buy you a few supplies. Romantic notions were all well and good, but they had no place in the here and now. Hell, who knew how much of a place there'd been for romantic notions even in the time before, for street rats like them? He remembered standing on a rooftop in the sunrise, breathing in the early-morning air, in that solitary fleeting time of day in which the city's breezes blew as close as they ever came to blowing fresh and clean. That breeze had played along the line of washing, sheets laundered and re-laundered so many times that they had been rendered a soft white; had ruffled his shirt collar, had gently swept strands of chestnut hair away from Sarah's face. They'd shared a smile then, and a silence that was awkward and yet somehow not so awkward, and Jack had thought about Santa Fe, and about the strangeness of timing, and about the harsh cobbled streets that he called home.

_My arm will soon aroun'  
Your wais' be twinin'  
Kiss me, Honey, do_

What he had not thought about was money. The Jacobses, warm people though they were, had not sacrificed and slaved for years in factories and over tatting shuttles in order to have their only daughter wed a newspaper boy. Though they remained unfailingly kind to Jack and never discouraged the courtship, neither did they encourage it; seeing the infatuation for what it was, they wisely held their peace. When Jack had first figured it out, he'd been seized with an almost overwhelming urge to prove them wrong—and had they resisted, countered him, thrown him out, he would have undoubtedly followed through. But Mayer and Esther had been mild and unintrusive, and in short order, with no one really to blame, the romance had run its course.

Her flushed figure pressed against his shoulder in the aftermath of an alley brawl, a quick clasp of hands as they stole downstairs in the dark, a triumphant kiss amidst a mob of cheering newsboys—none of it found purchase with either of them once the urgency had ebbed.

Not five weeks after the strike, the headiness and excitement had cooled at last, attraction mellowing to friendship (though not without a few uncomfortable bumps on the way); and around the Jacobs home Jack once again became known more as David's guest than Sarah's. And if Mayer and Esther had possibly, just possibly, looked ever so faintly relieved by it, and perhaps just a little sad, then Jack had done them the courtesy of pretending not to notice.

He blinked away the sudden stinging in his eyes, and leaned forward to set the locket down carefully on the "keep" pile.


	28. XXVIII

If this ain't it, Jack thought, we got nowhere left to go.

He kept a tight grip on the payment bag in his left hand as he was roughly patted down. Squinting up at the midday sun, he set his shoulders against the wave of fatigue as he thought about the return trip, assuming they were even able to get what they'd come for here. They'd done nine miles of running and weaving and ducking to get this far, and half the exhaustion came not from the physical demands of the long trek but from the need to constantly watch the sky and the streets. So far they'd dodged roving gangs, a bloody brawl at the first gatehouse and a hazardously-large crowd at the second.

Now, out of other options, they were at the last of the available gatehouses—all the way up on One hundred thirty-fifth Street, clear across town in the longest way possible.

It didn't help his peace of mind that they were currently weaponless. It was a necessity; the water barons didn't let you into their domains armed, and anything they found on you they'd confiscate for the duration, "to make sure things is civil-like."

Sometimes they didn't bother to give what they confiscated back. Jack's side felt too empty without the accustomed weight of his knife; it was currently an entire block away, left with Blink and the rest of the boys who waited for them there, the last of the small groups that were posted along the route between here and home. Walking the final block here, after that, had seemed almost as long as the whole nine miles itself. Beside him, Snoddy looked downright uneasy at carrying anything other than the shotgun.

The guard searching Jack grunted and pushed him forward to join the back of the line waiting to get in. In a moment Snoddy was next to him, and the two of them kept an eye on Skittery and Chopper as they were likewise checked. In the line ahead stood or crouched about ten people, grim and silent, clutching empty pails or other vessels.

Before them loomed what could only be described as a stone castle, rising up from the hill like something out of a medieval tale. Perched on its high, steep foundation, its maroon and buff walls stretched away to either side; at the far left, it ended in a crenellated, octagonal tower. Atop this high point was what had once been a flagpole but was now, Jack could see, a length of steel fashioned into a lethal spike.

His jaw tightened in resentment; a building like this had no business appearing as intimidating as it did. All their lives they'd seen any number of imposing brick and granite fortresses on their daily rounds in Manhattan; next to the size and grandeur of the city's many armories, the two-story gatehouse was insignificant, a foothill among mountains. What drew people to this site, however, was not what sat aboveground, but what lay beneath. And the armories were no more...

Guards carrying knives or firearms bracketed either side of the wide door, keeping a close watch on the customers. A number of rifle barrels could be seen projecting from the small round windows that ringed the tower near its top.

Snoddy followed his gaze. "There's more of 'em than last time."

"Yeah." Jack kept his voice low. "Business must be boomin' for Juergen to hire this much protection."

A few more customers were arriving. Snoddy shifted the two aluminum buckets he held to his other hand, stretching his cramped fingers. Skittery and Chopper joined them with their own assortment of bottles, pots, and canteens, and the four boys stood close and unspeaking, trying to conserve as much of their energy as possible.

Ahead of them, the line shuffled forward, people entering and leaving the gatehouse: some angry when they came out, some relieved, others simply resigned. One man was tossed through the door and down the pavilion steps, his dented stove-kettle hurled after him, barely missing his head. He sprang to his feet and started back in with a snarl, but the sudden fixing of gunsights on him stopped him cold. It was enough to dissuade him; pausing only long enough to retrieve the kettle and throw the guards another dirty look, he scurried away.

"Couldn't pay," Skittery muttered, "or wouldn't?"

A middle-aged couple carrying a pot and a jug emerged, the woman in tears. When she raised her left hand and pressed the bare knuckle of her ring finger to her trembling lips, Jack could easily guess why.

A pot and a jug's worth of water for something like that; a poor bargain, but sometimes the only bargain. Skittery hissed an oath, but wisely did not interfere. The woman's husband, eyes bleak, murmured a few words of comfort and ushered her quickly away with an arm about her shoulders. Poor bargain or not, once you had your water, you did not stay.

Three more people and then it'd be their turn. Some sort of disagreement was brewing amongst the cluster of toughs who'd arrived just behind Jack's group, four young men slightly older than themselves. One of them shoved another, sending him stumbling against Chopper. "Sorry, pal—"

Chopper's hand flashed out and grabbed the man's wrist, squeezing hard. The newcomer's fingers were still in Chopper's vest pocket.

Being caught did not faze the would-be thief; he yanked his arm back, pulling Chopper off-balance, and threw his other fist into the boy's face. Chopper staggered to one knee. His assailant drew back a hob-nailed boot, aiming a heavy kick at Chopper's undefended midsection.

It never landed. Snoddy swung his arm in a vicious backhand arc, smashing the pair of metal buckets into the side of the man's head. The aluminum was light, but the momentum behind the blow sent the man down like a ton of bricks. His companions sprang forward, Skittery hauled Chopper to his feet, and Jack reached instinctively for a knife that was no longer there.

He had only just enough time to brace himself before one of the toughs charged him; Jack twisted so that the man's shoulder missed his stomach, ramming into his side instead. It still hurt, though it failed to entirely knock the breath out of him. Before the man could straighten up, Jack slammed his right fist twice into the brawny back, going for the spine. He tried to get a knee into his opponent's gut, but the man blocked him with one arm, the knuckles of his free hand catching Jack hard in the jaw.

Jack allowed the force of it to push him back a few steps, giving himself room to maneuver. He needed both hands free, but he couldn't afford to drop the payment bag or damage what was inside. When the man rushed forward to close the distance again, Jack spun, letting his opponent's strike glance off his shoulderblade, and punched his own elbow backwards into the man's sternum as forcefully as he could. A choked grunt told him he'd hit his target.

The relief was short-lived. Another man dove in from the side, going for the bag, swinging an empty sarsaparilla bottle by the neck like a club at Jack's wrist. The bottle did not break, but the glass was thick; Jack's arm went numb, and it was only because he'd wound the bag a few times around his fist for safekeeping that he kept a hold of it at all. The bottle came down at him again, and he dodged, knowing he was too slow—

A hand on the back of his collar jerked him out of the path of the descending bottle; at the same time, his attacker was pulled aside. Around them, the rest of the brawl had been similarly halted. Skittery pushed himself angrily off the ground; Chopper had a bloody nose. Armed guards stepped between, guns and knives leveled.

"Cole," a voice said from the direction of the gatehouse, "are you fucking with my business?"

All heads turned to the speaker who stood in the doorway of the raised pavilion, arms crossed over his broad chest.

"I said," he repeated into the silence, sounding each word deliberately, "_are you fucking _with my business?" Despite the harshness of the question and the sharpness of his gaze, his tone was nearly pleasant, the syllables rounded and clear.

The one evidently named Cole spat a mouthful of blood to the side, wiped the back of his sleeve across his lips. His glare was sullen. "Ain't got nothin' to do with you."

"Because," Juergen continued, as though Cole hadn't spoken, "my business is important to me, see. It's how I make my living." His gesture encompassed the guards on the ground, the ones up on the tower. "It's how I keep my men from starving."

"We ain't took nothin'."

"You don't want my men starving, now do you?"

The guards shifted slightly, and for the first time uneasiness crept into Cole's expression. He raised his hands, as if to prove they were empty. "We ain't _took _nothin'. He'd no call to grab Seth like that."

"An interesting interpretation of crime," Juergen said. "But I don't think my customers agree. Last time, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, because no one saw anything."

"Wasn't nothin' to see," Cole insisted, but he sounded less sure of himself. You didn't cross Juergen; the water baron had the weathered features of a sailor and the muscles of a blacksmith, and the calculated speech of neither.

"My men tell me there was. You can argue with them, if you like."

"No." Cole swallowed audibly. "Mr. Juergen."

"I've had customers who didn't return, because of you."

"But we ain't—"

"If a customer doesn't return..." Juergen bared his teeth briefly, and there was no humor in it whatsoever. "I want it to be because of _me_."

"But I—"

"Goodbye," Juergen told him quietly.

Cole's eyes widened, then he and his gang took off down the street. They didn't look back once.

Jack shifted the bag to his other hand, flexed his wrist experimentally. It was beginning to swell.

"Kelly."

Jack met that sharp gaze with a level one of his own. "They came at _us_."

Juergen's expression did not change. "We'll see." His eyes flicked to a point beyond them, and Jack glanced over his shoulder to see that the line had doubled to over two dozen, with people continuing to sidle their way in from the surrounding streets.

A smirk slid across Juergen's lips before he turned and disappeared back inside his castle.


	29. XXIX

Jack pulled in deep breaths, tried to relax his muscles. Made sure his expression gave nothing away. Did his goddamned best not to look down.

"Writing-paper." Juergen let the lid of the small wooden box fall shut, raised a sardonic brow at the guard to his right. "Now I wonder, who would there be for me to send letters to?"

Snickers sounded throughout the large vault-like space: Juergen's men, hidden in the gloom. Save for a circle of lamplight where Juergen himself was seated on a carved oaken armchair and his customers waited before him, the interior of the gatehouse was dark, its amber and red brickwork and the network of small pipes overhead barely discernible. The stained glass that had once graced the few windows had been boarded over, leaving only thin vertical slits here and there for defense. There was some illumination in the tower so that the men could see to climb its spiral staircase; apart from that dim glow, spilling through the tower's narrow corner entrance, vague shadows and the occasional flash of light on blade or gun barrel could be glimpsed. That was all.

Whereas, Jack knew, he and his boys were completely visible, and very good targets. And with hardly any interior walls to speak of, save for a huge arch to their right that spanned the width of the building, the place was a veritable shooting gallery.

The arch itself had been walled off. There the new brick and mortar were uneven, in stark contrast to the precise construction of the rest of the gatehouse, but there was no doubt that the wall was sturdy and thick. The steel door that had been set into its surface was firmly shut, though narrow slits here and there between the bricks allowed the protrusion of yet more gun barrels.

From behind this sealed chamber, mysterious and dim, drifted the soft, cynical laughter of the water baron's women. These were the ones who had offered Juergen and his men the only thing they had left to offer; and now amidst the deadly anarchy of the city they lived like queens, with food and drink and riches, armed protection and a solid roof over their heads. But the price they paid was terrible.

Jack didn't respond to the man's question or to the guards' amusement. He'd seen the customers lining up outside, had guessed that something big must have gone down at the other gatehouses—the brawl at one of them erupting into something more, or the too-long lines at the other one attracting unwanted attention—and knew Juergen wasn't going to waste much time haggling over prices now, not when there was more profit waiting at the door.

"Cufflinks?" Juregen continued. "And what would I do with these?"

"You put 'em in your cuffs," Chopper snapped, before Jack could stop him.

Juergen let out a bark of laughter that made Jack's nails dig deeper into his palms. "A bright boy, that one," Juergen said. "There's no getting anything past him."

Someone in the tower jumped the last few steps, or dropped something, or—whatever it was, it shook the metal floor and set it to ringing, and Jack's shoulders tensed involuntarily. Running over rooftops in the fresh air, swinging defiantly outside the Refuge's barred windows—that was one thing, but standing on the floor in here was a different matter altogether. Made up of large square tiles of metal mesh, it showed all too clearly the cavernous space that lay beneath the building, plunging three stories down through darkness before reaching the black surface of the water in the subterranean chambers. Every slight vibration, every echo was a nerve-wracking reminder that only a thin grating separated you from oblivion.

It didn't help that just behind Jack and his group, to either side, sat large rectangular wells where the floor simply...wasn't there. No metal, no brick, nothing but a straight drop into the depths below. Slender brass railings ringed these gaping holes, looking not so much elegant as downright insufficient.

Jack hated it.

Juergen's gaze flicked almost imperceptibly to the wooden box. "You're asking for twelve gallons."

Jack unclenched his teeth enough to answer, "Yeah." Not much for thirty-one boys, but they'd pulled together everything in the tunnel that could hold water and could be easily carried—carried at a run while full, if need be—and it had come to that.

"You forget who you're talking to, boy. You've only enough to hold eleven."

Jack winced inwardly, hoped that nothing showed on his face. The man was right, but the opening bluff had been worth a try. Juergen had obviously developed a keen sense for volume since the last time they'd been here; Jack would have to remember that. He watched the man's glance dart to the box again. "Then we'll take back them cufflinks, and make it eleven."

"Since your boy kindly explained how to use these, I've become rather fond of them." Juergen's grey eyes sharpened. "I keep the links. Six."

"You ain't serious. We can't live on six—"

"Then you'll die on five."

"Ten," Jack said.

"Five."

"Nine."

"Nine," Juergen repeated mockingly. He waved a hand at the stationery, the cufflinks, the ornamented silver spoon that sat on the large desk before him. "Nine. For _these?_"

"It's what we got—"

Juergen leaned back with a dismissive sneer, raised a muscled arm to beckon to one of his guards. "I should have you thrown out."

That did it. Nine miles here and nine miles back, the fight, the wait, all for nothing—Jack let his control slip, let his frustration boil over. Snoddy was closest; Jack rounded on him. "Gimme a little help here, for christsakes. You'se just standing there like you ain't got a thing to do with this."

If Snoddy was startled by the sudden outburst, he hid it well, fists tightening defensively. "Back off. You expect me to do something, you should've said." He'd raised his voice only slightly, but the warning was clear.

"You keep bringing in nothin' but junk," Jack shot back. "We could've had a deal with Juergen by now—"

Snoddy's lip curled. "I don't gotta take that from you."

"I _told _you that goddamned paper was good for nothing 'cept tinder." Jack strode forward, reaching for the box. "At least we can keep from freezin'—"

He saw the blow coming fast, but couldn't avoid it completely. The butt of the guard's rifle struck him in the shoulder, knocking him to the floor; an instant later the weapon was shoved against the back of his neck, pinning him down, giving him a close-up view through the mesh of the black void below. His stomach roiled, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. His left wrist, jarred by the fall, redoubled its throbbing; he concentrated on it instead, on the noises around him.

"You touch _nothing_ until I tell you we're finished," Juergen was saying. "Tinder? _Imbeciles._" He fairly spat the word. "Eight, and get out of my sight."

When the guard let him up, Jack got to his feet, braced himself on Juergen's desk with his uninjured hand. "Eight."

A jerk of the chin from Jeurgen, and men were moving to the pulleys rigged from the ceiling, hoisting pails from the wells and emptying them into the containers Jack's group had brought. The splash and smell of fresh water made Jack realize just how parched his throat was from the day's long journey, and he swallowed hard.

He watched the clear liquid being poured into the bottles, the buckets, the canteens, kept up a mental tally as they were filled.

God_damn _it. When the men tossed the pails into the wells for the last time and stood back, Jack staggered a little, caught himself on the edge of the desk. An instant later Skittery was beside him, taking his elbow.

Jack leaned against his arm, and muttered in his ear, "Seven."

"Seven," Skittery confirmed under his breath.

Jack turned to Juergen. "That's a gallon short."

"So you can count." Juergen had the box open again, riffling his fingers through the stack of writing-paper. "Be grateful my men didn't shoot you on the lawn for fighting outside my door. Seven is what you get."

"They was trying to take—"

A rifle muzzle pressed beneath his ear cut Jack's words short.

"They can still shoot you on the lawn now," Juergen informed him pleasantly. "You have ten seconds."

Jack gritted his teeth, but there was nothing to be done about it. Silently, they gathered up their purchases, and were escorted roughly to the front door.

* * *

Shortly after they turned the corner, moving as fast as they could down the block, Snoddy reached out and took the three bottles from Jack's slightly-unsteady grip. "That wrist busted, Cowboy?"

"What, this?" Jack shrugged. "'Course not."

They kept their voices low. Returning with precious cargo like water could mean that you wouldn't die of thirst when you got home, but it could also mean you never got home at all.

Blink, Mush, and Toms appeared from behind a ruined wall, relief evident on their faces. Snoddy shook his head at the rapidly-bruising wrist, traded the bottles and a bucket for his shotgun, and said, "You'se a good actor, Jack, but you ain't _that_ good."

"What happened?" Mush asked, handing Jack his knife.

"You shoulda seen it," Skittery grinned. "Jack here bluffed 'em like he was Doc Holliday."

Toms tossed Chopper a pocketknife and a slingshot, examined his friend's face skeptically. "Yeah? That why you got a bloody nose?"

Chopper swiped a ragged sleeve haphazardly across it as they headed quickly towards the next rendezvous point, two miles downtown. "'S already stopped. And anyway, that was from the fight before."

"What fight?"

"There was a fight?"

Jack pressed his wrist to his side, trying not to jostle it as they jogged down the street.

"Some bastard tried dippin' in me pockets." Chopper rubbed at the stains now on his sleeve. "We hadda take all his friends on."

"Then Juergen threw 'em out," Skittery said, "you should've seen the looks on their faces. Only favor the son of a bitch ever did us. How'd you know he wanted them papers so bad, Jack?"

Jack smiled grimly. "He's a businessman, ain't he? Said so himself. You ever known a businessman who didn't like writin' stuff down?"

"You mean, like what he sold, what he took in?" Mush suggested.

"Or people who owe him something," Blink said.

"People to deal with."

"People to watch."

"People to kill," Jack muttered.


	30. XXX

"...so then Jack says, it ain't good for nothin', oh dearie me, we'll just take it back then, we was gonna _burn _it anyway..."

"And Juergen, I thought he was gonna burst right there! You shoulda seen his face—"

"He went red—"

"He went _purple_—"

"There was steam coming outta his ears, I swear to god—"

Amused, Jack shook his head a little at the laughter and chatter coming from farther down the tunnel. Half of the boys relating the story hadn't even been there when it happened, and it sounded like it was picking up a few improvements in the telling, but he was in no mood to correct them.

The rush of adrenaline was slowly wearing off, now that they'd made it home and gotten everyone back into the tunnel in one piece. He slouched casually back against the tunnel wall behind him, loosely cradling his left wrist in his other hand. He was pretty sure it wasn't broken; he figured it'd hurt a lot worse if it were. It'd be aching something fierce later tonight, he knew, but for now he could for the most part ignore it, focusing instead on sorting out the things that still needed to be done.

Specs and a few of the others were seeing to it that the water they'd brought in was being added to to what they already had stored. Some weeks ago they'd found a couple of wash kettles, huge rounded cast-iron vessels that held a good twenty-five gallons, into which went all their drinking reserve. Trouble was, those kettles weighed close to seventy pounds each, and after wrestling one of the unwieldy things down the narrow ventilation shaft the boys had vowed not to even _think _about trying it with the other one.

Not that they needed a second one now, Jack thought; they were lucky if they could even fill the first. What they'd bought from Juergen today just barely doubled the amount they'd had to begin with.

"...got a couple hours of daylight left," Snoddy was saying. "Ain't so bad. We can still get a few guys out, but it don't matter if we don't."

"I'll go," Snitch spoke up.

Jack glanced over at him. "You don't gotta, you know. We got enough food scraped up in here for one night, we ain't gonna starve."

Snitch shrugged, not looking up from sharpening his knife. "Been cooped up in here for two days."

Jack took a closer look at him. Snitch was bent over the whetstone, scraping the edge of the blade across it intently, his movements quick and full of nervous energy. As difficult as the eighteen-mile round trip to the gatehouse had been, Jack knew, it hadn't been much easier for the boys who'd been posted back home or in the streets nearby. Hour upon hour of waiting with no word, with not even the slightest hint as to whether you ought to break position and try to find out what was happening to your friends, or if abandoning your post was in fact the worst thing you could do. Or if, perhaps, you'd waited just a little longer than you ever should have waited, and you were now terribly, terribly late...

A light tug on Jack's left arm made him turn, ready to snap defensively at the disturbance, but he shut his mouth when David closed his palm gently over the vivid bruise. Jack braced himself for the sudden jab of pain, and was vaguely surprised when it didn't come.

Yesterday had just made things worse, when they'd all been forced to stay inside thanks to the dragons spotted the evening before. Snitch dunked the whetstone in the nearest fire-bucket a little harder than he needed to, sending a small splash of water over the edge.

"I'll go with you, Snitch," Race said.

"Yeah."

"You need one more," Jack reminded them.

David quietly withdrew his hand, got up and moved away. His expression was distant, preoccupied, and Jack found himself oddly uneasy at his disappearance. His first impulse was to rise too and follow him, just to...well, just to what, exactly? Just to find out what was on David's mind? He knew better than that by now; he'd get no answers there. Just to make sure he'd be all right?

(Or just to settle his own nerves, maybe?

Hell, no. He was Jack Kelly, and it took more than getting threatened twice at gunpoint in one afternoon to jangle _his _nerves.)

Pocket let a just-emptied bucket drop with a thump, pulling Jack's attention away from David. "I'll go!"

"Not you, kid," Jack said.

"What? Why not?"

Well, for one thing, kid, Jack thought, you'se all of ten. Which wouldn't count for much, I did all sorts of crazy things when I was ten and got turned out on the streets, but this is Snitch we'se talking about, and you ain't going.

"Because _I'se_ going," Specs cut in before Jack could think up a reply, "and _you_ needs to stay and make sure this water gets measured out right. We got eighteen gallons, there's thirty-one of us, how much do we got?"

Pocket eyed Specs suspiciously, but said, "Eighteen gallons."

"_Each_, smart-mouth."

"I dunno."

"Help me figure it out then, all right? I'se counting on you."

The suspicion didn't entirely vanish from Pocket's face, but there was a glimmer of reluctant interest there as well. "Me?"

"Yeah. That is, unless..." Specs paused, evidently re-considering. "You think you ain't—"

"I can do it!"

"All right," Specs said mildly.

Pocket crossed his arms over his chest, turned to Jack. "But I goes out tomorrow."

Jack nodded. "Tomorrow."

Blink raised a hand to his mouth. "Ask Skittery to help you, kid," he said in a stage whisper. "Tell him you heard he's real good at figurin' numbers."

Pocket cast a surprised glance at Skittery, who was farther down the tunnel and out of earshot, then winked at Blink and quickly assumed a downcast expression. "I'se been tryin' to figure this for _hours_," he whimpered pitifully. He looked up, eyes shining with such irresistable hope that Blink laughed out loud. "D'you think you could...? Aw, _please?_"

Mush gave Blink a reproachful punch in the shoulder, but it didn't stop Blink and Pocket from sharing a conspiratorial grin. Jack just traded a look with Specs, who rolled his eyes as he slipped his bone-handled knife onto his belt. Skittery would be tearing his hair out by suppertime.

Restlessly, Snitch bounded to his feet. "Let's go."

Jack took a breath to say something after them, but lost the words when a sudden chill swept over him, colder even than autumn air belowground should be. He drew in another breath, trying not to let the reaction show on his face. Race apparently caught it anyway; he hesitated, seemed to about to point it out, but when Jack deliberately avoided his gaze, Race only shrugged and followed Snitch and Specs towards the other end of the tunnel.

Too bad; it might have broken the silence between them that had welled up over the past week, but Jack was not about to let anyone call attention to a stupid fit of shivering. It was only the sudden ebbing of the adrenaline rush, he knew, that squeezed his chest and left his muscles feeling like water. It wasn't the first time it had happened. That didn't, however, mean he had to like it.

Blink and Mush and Snoddy were already discussing something else. Jack leaned away from the icy iron walls and shut his eyes for just a moment. When he opened them again, David was beside him, his closed knife in one hand and a strip of soft cotton in the other.

"Don't bother," Jack ordered gruffly when David set down the knife and reached for his arm, "it ain't broke." But he had to grit his teeth to keep them from chattering, and it robbed his protest of any real power. David merely ignored it, balanced Jack's wrist on his own knee and set about wrapping it firmly with the cotton.

"You'se just makin' it...look worse," Jack mumbled, and indeed the pale cotton only made the deep indigo beneath his skin appear nearly black by comparison. He bit back a wince as David wound the strip a little tighter, carefully compressing the swelling. He watched as the dark bruising gradually disappeared beneath layer after thin layer, the repetition strangely hypnotic despite the sharp ache, and if his mind began to feel a little fogged by it he couldn't summon up the energy to care quite so much.

When David tied it off and reached for the blankets next to them, Jack rallied enough to push himself off David's shoulder—wait, how long had he been leaning there?—and grabbed for them himself. He'd never had nobody to tuck him in at night, and he wasn't about to start now.

Somehow he wound up curled on the floor with his back to the rest of the tunnel, two blankets wrapped around him. David's fingers rested briefly on his forearm before picking up his wrist and laying it against one of the iron ribs lining the wall. Jack opened his mouth to ask what that was for, but let the question drop half-formed when he felt the chill of the metal seep through the cotton, easing some of the throbbing.

He could afford to close his eyes again for a minute, he decided. Maybe two.

* * *

"Jack!"

He fought his way up out of a sea of haziness, blinking in the reflected candlelight. Had he dozed off?

"Jack! You'll never guess—"

"Jack, you gotta see—!"

There was a tumult at the other end of the tunnel. Automatically, he put out a hand to push himself up, and nearly fell back as his weight came down on his injured wrist. Pain stabbed through his arm to the elbow, and a gasp slipped past his lips before he could catch it. Doubled over, he started to turn, when the next voice he heard stopped him in his tracks.

"Well, well. If it ain't Jack be nimble, Jack be quick."


	31. XXXI

Jack turned quickly on his knees, only peripherally aware of David's steadying hand on his shoulder, to stare at the familiar figure who stood just a couple of yards away.

Despite the three long intervening months, he was instantly recognizable, even in the low lamplight. The slender frame was perhaps a little thinner now, and he would never have been caught dead in the old days in clothes so ragged and smeared with soot that they looked like they'd been dug out of a fire-pit. But the confident stance was the same, the upward tilt of the chin, the fighter's grace. The brass-handled ebony walking-stick that had struck fear into the hearts of so many was still in evidence, its owner leaning upon it casually, its steel tip gleaming against the dusty brick floor.

He was flanked closely by four of his own, broad-shouldered boys who loomed over him and whom Jack didn't know, their glowering expressions daring anyone to get too near. The Manhattan boys were crowded behind them, eager curiosity warring with their long-ingrained awe for the leader of Brooklyn.

"Spot," Jack said, rising to his feet. His voice failed him then, throat going tight; he was certain his jaw was probably hanging open, wondered if he could blame it on the fact that he'd just been woken out of a sound sleep with a thunderbolt like this.

"So. You'se alive after all," Spot stated.

Jack stepped closer. "Could say the same for you," he said roughly.

"And in one piece."

"_And _in one piece."

Spot nodded to himself, his shoulders relaxing just a fraction, then he spat on his palm and held it out, waiting. Jack did likewise, catching his hand in a warm grip. Despite himself, he was a little startled to find that the skin of the other boy's palm was marred by scrapes and scars. Spot had seen his share of bare-knuckle fights, to be sure, but Jack didn't recall there being quite so many marks.

It had been a quarter of a year already, though; the hardest quarter-year they had ever lived through. The grind of day-to-day survival played tricks on your perception, made you forget just how much things had changed in ways you didn't even realize.

Of course Spot was different. But he was whole and upright, with that old smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, and that was what mattered.

"His hand's all wrapped up, boss," the boy to Spot's left muttered.

Spot blinked. "What's with the hand, Jacky-boy?"

"This? Nothin'."

"You oughtta see the other guy," Skittery called out.

"I oughtta," Spot repeated to his boys, to a chorus of harsh snickers.

"Did Race and the boys find you?" Jack asked.

Spot shrugged. "Or maybe we found _them_. Who's to say?"

Race pushed his way to the front. "We ran into each other down at the East Side piers. Then we came right back here."

Jack eyed the marks on Spot's clothes, on all the Brooklyn boys' clothes. The deep creases in the fabric were closely-spaced and sharp-edged, evidence that they'd been hastily wrung out when wet. "What, did you come over the river?"

Something twisted Spot's expression, a flash of grief and rage so deep that Jack took an involuntary step back. The four boys around Spot bristled, drawing closer to their leader, their scowls darkening. Jack quickly located Snoddy at the edge of the crowd, sent him a warning look.

Before Snoddy could move more than two paces towards them, Spot clenched his jaw and pulled in a slow, deliberate breath, his face smoothing out as though a mask had fallen into place. "Don't ask me that again, Jack," he bit out. "Just don't. You understand?"

Jack nodded warily. He flicked his eyes to Snoddy, signaled that he and a few of the others should move up to the front anyway, just in case.

"I said, _you understand?_"

Jack cleared his throat. "All right," he said evenly.

"Good." At that word, Spot's boys stood down, though they didn't step away. The smirk returned to Spot's lips, and he tapped the walking-stick idly against the floor. "Sounds like you got a real mob in here."

"That's 'cos there's thirty-one of us."

"That many, huh? They all yours?"

"More or less," Jack said. His gesture encompassed the rest of the tunnel. "We got a few new guys, but they'se one of us, now. You?"

Spot didn't answer immediately. Then he said, "You got eyes."

"Yeah, but..." Jack trailed off as Spot's implication sank in. "You mean..." _Oh god, just the five of them?_

"You'se gonna say somethin' stupid next," Spot told him. "Save yourself the trouble."

Jack stiffened. "I ain't said—"

"You stayin', Spot?" Racetrack cut in. "Or you just passing through?"

The question seemed to catch him off guard. "We..." Spot began, then faltered, for once at an uncharacteristic loss for words.

In that moment of hesitation, as though a light had been switched on, Jack could see something else, the smaller signs that he'd missed up to now. The signs that Spot's cocky demeanor and the dim illumination of the tunnel had managed to hide: the lines of strain on his face, the way his knuckles were white around the brass handle of his walking-stick.

"They'se stayin'," Jack said, before Spot could find the rest of his sentence.

"Is that so," Spot returned softly.

"I say so."

Spot's eyes narrowed. "We ain't asking for charity—"

"And we ain't offering none. You and your boys'll pull your weight around here, same as everybody else."

Spot lowered his head for a moment, bit the inside of his cheek in thought. When he looked up again, his grin was reluctant, but genuine. "Then I say we'se stayin'."

A wave of sound broke out among the boys in the tunnel: murmurs of excitement, and more than a little relief. Spot Conlon had a reputation to be feared, and that had not been in the least diminished by the camaraderie of the strike or the terror of the dragon attacks...but for certain it was better to have him on your side, rather than on anyone else's.

Jack spat into his hand, offered it to seal the deal. "Welcome to our digs, then."

Spot made no move to return the shake.

The buzzing of conversation died away, boys falling silent, not quite believing the refusal. You didn't do that, not after you'd agreed, not if you were as good as your word.

Jack frowned. "What—"

And then he saw it, saw it at last, the way Spot was not looking at his outstretched hand. Saw why Spot had not accepted his nod as an answer, why Spot had laughed when Skittery said he ought to see the other guy.

Saw the rueful, bitter smile. "You..." Jack stammered, "you'se..."

"Blind?" Spot said easily, still with that smile. "I always said you was a smart one, Jacky-boy."


	32. XXXII

Jack stared at him, blood pounding suddenly in his eardrums; fumbled for a response, found none. "No..."

Spot spread his hands. "Seeing is believing, Jacky." He let out a choked laugh, and added, "And believe me, I oughtta know."

But...when? How...? Jack nearly blurted it out, checked himself just in time. If this had to do with crossing the river—

(If indeed they'd even crossed the river, and he didn't see any other way they could have made it from Brooklyn to Manhattan. What the hell had happened there?)

He wanted answers, knew that direct questions wouldn't get him any. He turned to Race instead, included Specs and Snitch in his glance: they were the only ones who'd seen Spot in broad daylight, on the journey from the piers all the way back to City Hall Park. They all three looked a little blank, as though the revelation had taken them by surprise. "Did yous know already?"

"He's askin' thems we ran into," one of Spot's boys said into his ear.

Race started uneasily, looked over his shoulder at Specs and Snitch. Before he could answer, Spot leaned forward, his smile slipping. "Keep these three. Send everybody else away."

He'd said it very quietly, but the urgency was unmistakable, and Jack saw no reason to refuse. "Stay here," Jack told the three boys, then raised his voice. "All right, you bums, alla yous go mind your own business. Go on."

There were a few grumbled protests, but Jack silenced them with a glare and the rest of the boys dispersed into smaller clusters, falling almost immediately into heated speculation over the new turn of events.

He could feel David's presence at his back. Jack turned to him, set a hand on his shoulder, hesitated. In the past he wouldn't have thought twice about asking that David stay for this as well; would have, in fact, swiftly taken down anyone who tried to oppose the idea. He'd gotten, he knew, just plain used to it. Perhaps too much so. It was true that he'd known Spot for years, and they'd exchanged their share of confidential words: sometimes in friendship, sometimes at odds, almost always late at night when the darkness somehow blurred the lines between boroughs. But ever since that meeting on the Brooklyn docks at the start of the strike, he had rarely entered into a discussion of a..._political_...nature with Spot Conlon without David at his side.

Jack grimaced. He'd _definitely _gotten too used to it, but at this moment it all came down to the overburdened look in David's eyes. Making his partner stay and listen to this now would be doing David no favors. He slid his hand down to David's elbow, gave him a slight push towards the others. "You too."

Spot swayed and Race instinctively reached to steady him, only to be knocked sprawling by one of the Brooklyn boys. He landed with a grunt on the floor. "Hey!" Jack snapped, striding forward.

"Knock it off," Spot ordered. He was leaning against the arm of the boy to his left. "Now."

Jack faced off against the stranger who'd struck Race, a hulking six-plus footer. "I ain't having that, Spot. Not in my home."

"You punks heard him," Spot said.

Specs was helping Race to his feet. At Jack's questioning glance, Race only shook his head dismissively, wiped a hand across his reddened cheek. Most of the rest of the Manhattan boys had jumped up at the commotion; Jack waved them back down.

"Who'd you hit?" Spot demanded. "Race? Garrs, watch yourself."

"He tried to grab ya—" Garrs said.

"But not to kill me, I bet. Watch yourself, I said."

Garrs subsided, still glowering. "Yeah, boss."

"Race—"

"'S all right, Spot," Race said, shooting Garrs a dirty look.

Now that he no longer had a general audience, Spot had gone alarmingly pale, the lines around his mouth tightening. Guard-dog demeanors notwithstanding, his boys didn't look much better. Watching them, Jack warily took hold of Spot's arm. "C'mon."

Spot shook him off. "I'se fine."

Jack didn't argue the point. "Over here, then." He backed a few yards deeper into the tunnel, where it was quieter. "Sit, and you tell me what you want to tell me."

Spot pushed himself away from the boy he'd been all but slumped against. The tip of the walking-stick tapped the floor ahead of him as he stepped cautiously towards the sound of Jack's voice, and something about that searching rhythm of steel against brick sent a chill down Jack's spine. Spot's boys hovered around their leader, but didn't touch him. "Here," Jack said, and stopped Spot with a hand to his shoulder.

Spot sank down onto the blankets, the rest of them following. He cleared his throat, then said, "If you gots any water or even food, my boys could do with some."

Jack sent Specs and Snitch for it—truth be told, he'd been about to do so anyway, whether Spot willingly asked or not. The five newcomers looked like they hadn't eaten in days, their faces shadowed with hunger.

"Race ain't told you," Spot said, after he'd gulped down half a cup of water and his boys were falling ravenously on the biscuits and corned beef, "'cos I made 'em all swear not to. But it ain't what you'se thinking."

"Try me," Jack prompted.

Spot turned sightless eyes in his direction. "I was out cold 'til we got to City Hall."

Jack frowned. "You hurt?"

"Not so's you need to worry about it." Spot's fingers tightened around the silver-plated cup. "But that don't matter. The point is, you'se asking if they knew. And no, they didn't."

Jack glanced over at the three Manhattan boys. Snitch and Specs both ducked his gaze; Race had his head in his hands, as if it was only now beginning to sink in.

"You was out cold," Jack said carefully, "and your boys agreed to come along with mine?"

Race let his hands drop, but didn't look up. "I recognized Cannon here. Took me a while to remember where I'd seen 'im." He lifted his chin briefly at the sandy-haired boy across from him. "'Cept you wasn't one of Spot's, then."

"Things change," Cannon said.

"You know each other?" Jack asked.

Cannon shrugged, spoke around the mouthful of biscuit. "Seen him two or three times at Sheepshead."

Spot set down the cup, but made no move towards the dwindling pile of food. "We been holed up at one of the warehouses on the piers since yesterday. We was still..." He paused for the briefest of instants. "...decidin' where to go. One thing for sure—we wasn't going to stay on the piers another night. Garrs and Cannon was out scouting, ran into your boys."

Yesterday, Jack thought, _they _had been stuck down in the tunnel for most of the day, trying to figure out how they were going to pay for water, and...

"There's food, boss," Garrs said, touching Spot's wrist as though to guide him towards the remaining portion that the rest of the Brooklyn boys had carefully left undisturbed.

Spot pulled his hand away. "Later."

...and the evening before that, they'd seen dragons on the river.


	33. XXXIII

"We don't even know these guys," Snoddy was saying quietly.

Jack refrained from pointing out that there were already half a dozen boys in here that they hadn't known three months ago, either. Those hadn't caused them any trouble, but Snoddy knew as well as he that the ones who'd arrived with Spot were a different story altogether. Not helping matters any was the fact that nobody walked unarmed these days. Jack had already sent around a warning to his boys not to advertise what they carried; there were few things more senseless than someone getting knifed just because some newcomer misinterpreted an opened blade.

It wasn't just that they were boys from outside Manhattan; it was that Jack didn't recognize a single one of them. In the old days, straying onto Brooklyn's grounds, even with Spot's favor, had always been an uneasy proposition at best. But he'd at least been familiar with many of those who lurked on that borough's major street-corners or roamed the section of the docks that Spot had claimed as his own; could put names to faces for at minimum half of any given group of boys he encountered in Spot's presence. And those were just the regular newsboys. Jack knew everyone in Spot's upper ranks, and these four weren't it.

What had happened? Spot had agreed to stay here, no looking back, which meant he had no one to return for. Or to.

"Thought you said you know one of 'em," Blink said to Race.

"Don't really _know _him." Race rubbed wearily at his forehead, slanted a quick look at Jack. "Look, whenever Sadducee got entered at Sheepshead last season, right, I'd go around and chat with his stable-hands a bit. I mean...that was before the Dash, you know? Anybody would've done the same. Cannon was somebody or other's cousin or somethin', came down to visit a coupla times. So I seen him around, that's all."

"But he's okay, right?" Mush put in.

"Didn't go around robbin' old ladies in front of me, if that's what you mean," Race said. "That's as much as I know. He ain't Brooklyn, either, 'least not when I saw him...last year." He paused, gaze turning inward for a moment. "Yeah, last August, right. Saw him at the Futurity."

There'd been a time when Race could hardly mention last year's Futurity without crowing to anyone who'd listen that he'd won a whole six dollars and seventy-seven cents, not a penny less, by the slimmest of margins when Chacornac had beaten Brigadier to the finish by a neck. That, combined with their recent victory over Pulitzer, had put Racetrack in such a good mood that he hadn't seemed to mind the least bit when he'd gone out and promptly lost half that sum again in the remaining dozen days of Sheepshead's Fall races. Including the aforementioned Dash Stakes, in which crowd favorite and sure-fire winner Sadducee had come in a rather embarrassing fourth.

That felt like a lifetime ago.

"Then where's he from?" Blink asked.

"Queens. I think."

Jesus, Jack thought, what if Race hadn't offered to go with Snitch, what if Jack himself had insisted that everyone stay in the tunnel the rest of the day? They'd never have found Spot, would never have persuaded his boys to agree to come back with them.

He glanced down the length of the tunnel to where the boys from Brooklyn had finally collapsed into exhausted slumber on the blankets. It was still early evening and Jack's own boys were keeping to the south half of the tunnel, none of them wanting to be the first to venture into what had become uncertain space. Garrs had paced the narrow width of the tunnel like a caged tiger in an attempt to stay awake, obviously unwilling to leave their small group without a lookout, until Spot had told him to quit making so much racket. Once Garrs sat still, he hadn't outlasted the others by more than ten minutes.

How long would they have made it, outside? Spot refused to explain his injuries, refused to even let anyone check him over, but it was clear he needed rest and someplace dry and warm. A drafty warehouse—and Jack knew full well that none of the warehouses left standing along the nearby shore of the East River were wholly intact—just wouldn't have cut it. Oh sure, the late September air was comfortable during the day, and the nights...

If you weren't sick, if you weren't on the run, every newsie knew you didn't worry about sleeping on the streets in weather like this. You didn't worry about sleeping in the cold until it got to be November. Here in this thin ribbon of time that marked the ending of summer and the beginning of autumn, the stifling heat and sounds and smells of the city gave way to long sunsets, to crisp and bracing air. If you were going to save your pennies and bed down without solid walls around you, this was the time to do it. Even the start of spring, with its melting snow turned clinging and dark by the mud of the roadways, was no match for days like this. Sometimes you did it even if you _were _sick, because the onset of winter was just around the corner and you needed to spare what cash you could. It might take you a few more days to recover, but you'd make do anyway, if you had to.

That was then, of course. Here be dragons, now.

The expression on Spot's face when he'd asked about the river...Jack suppressed a shudder, reached out almost involuntarily to his left to close his fingers about David's knee. Most of the Manhattan boys, crowding from behind, hadn't really seen Spot's reaction. And as far as Jack was concerned, they sure as hell would never need to.

Mush and Blink were already deep into a back-and-forth debate. At Jack's other side, Snoddy wiped at his nose and pushed himself to his feet. "I'se gonna go check the front door."

Jack gestured towards the pair of crates where they stored their spare weaponry. "I want a couple extra of us watching that. Not too obvious, though."

"You got it," Snoddy said.

He caught Race glancing towards him again, and this time Jack jerked his chin at him in wordless summons. Race hesitated, gaze flicking briefly to David before he moved over, slumping into the space beside Jack that Snoddy had just vacated.

Jack lowered his voice so that the others nearby wouldn't overhear. "Something on your mind, Race?"

Race rolled his eyes at the excited conversations all around them. "What, you kidding me?"

"You know what I mean." It was the first time they'd directly addressed each other in a week.

Racetrack bit the inside of his cheek, evidently weighing his options, before he bent to Jack's ear. "I'll bet you ten bucks you'se thinkin' the same thing I am, when it comes to Spot."

David shifted uneasily, disquieted by the nervous atmosphere of the tunnel but without work to distract him, now that they were being cautious about drawing their knives. Jack absently squeezed his knee a little, met Race's somber gaze. "I ain't taking you up on that."

Race nodded. "It wasn't _his _idea to come to Manhattan."

"I figured that. Christ." Jack blew out a long breath. "Never thought I'd see the day Spot Conlon got run outta Brooklyn."

Race's lips twitched, but the expression was humorless. "You _seen_ Brooklyn these days?"

God, and he wished he hadn't. If you went anywhere near the East Side, you saw Brooklyn: the ruins of the waterfront, what was left of the Navy Yard. More than that, you saw the dark pall of smoke that too often cloaked her horizon, low and menacing. "You know it ain't just that."

"I know," Race said.

"It ain't that simple. He wouldn't leave without his boys."

"Unless somebody made him."

"Yeah," Jack said grimly.

"Times like these, ain't nothing you can count on. Maybe somebody bigger an' meaner turns up..."

"Fights him and hurts him bad. Takes over the place."

"Or he he could've went blind, before," Race said. "An accident, maybe. It could be anything. Then somebody else comes along, they catch him when he ain't up to scratch. An' they grab Brooklyn while they can."

"Yeah." He ran his thumb over David's knee. "Or maybe..."

He trailed off.

"Maybe," Race prompted, but from the resignation in his eyes Jack could tell that he knew perfectly well what was coming.

Jack let his shoulders slump, bit the bullet. "Maybe it was his own boys, if they thought he weren't no good to them like this."

The words fell between them like a lead weight, the ensuing silence so deafening Jack could swear the rest of the tunnel must have heard it.

"God," Race said finally, looking away. "I could do with a smoke, I tell ya."

Jack said nothing, tilted his head back against the brick wall with a grimace. It was an ugly accusation, no two ways about it. But when had that ever stopped anything from being true?

What would become of a leader who'd lost his sight? Spot could still command respect—that was obvious; those four with him treated him with as much deference as Jack had seen any of Spot's boys do in the past. But respect alone couldn't keep you warm. It couldn't keep you fed. And it sure as hell couldn't stand proof against winged death from above.

Too many possibilities, too many questions. Spot had the answers, and Spot wasn't talking.


	34. XXXIV

Jack shivered in the chill air, trying not to let the motion travel down his arms to where his hands rested on David's shoulder, buried beneath a double layer of blankets. If he was sitting up and not sleeping, he'd reasoned, he didn't actually need his blanket. And if David wasn't awake, he couldn't protest the extra one. It had sounded pretty good in his head, anyway.

Well, at least his fingers were warm. And the unexpected drop in temperature tonight meant that he probably wasn't in much danger of dozing off anytime soon. Spine aching from the strain of sitting up for so many hours, he slid another look at where Spot slept nearby, the other four loosely grouped beside him. In the end, the Brooklyn boys hadn't even stirred when everyone else had crept cautiously around them some hours later, finding their own places to bed down for the night.

Even in the cramped space of the tunnel, there was a good ten feet between the newcomers and the other nearest sleepers. Jack—and David—were the only two within that radius, and even then, Jack had wordlessly made sure to set David between himself and the wall.

His wrist was starting to ache again. He could cool it against the iron plating, but that meant having to pull his fingers out from under the blankets and having to reach over David. If he'd thought about it earlier on, he could've wrapped his hand in a wool rag and not worried about the cold at all. He could still do it now, but that would take effort, and he was so goddamned _tired_.

The sharp air stung the back of his throat and he turned, stifling a brief coughing fit against his shoulder.

Five new mouths to feed. God. What they'd bought from Juergen today was barely enough to cover those they'd had before, let alone another five. Still, Spot's boys looked to be in pretty good shape, exhaustion notwithstanding. Give them a few days to recover their strength, and they'd be a welcome addition to the scavenging teams, or—better yet—to the teams who waited as backup in the nearby streets. There'd never been enough backup to go around. Who'd cross goons as big as these?

"Run outta sheep to count, Jacky-boy?"

Jack's head shot up. He could've sworn that whisper was Spot's, but Spot's eyes were still closed.

Oh, _hell_. Of course they were.

"Somethin' like that," he whispered back.

"You the only one up?"

"No. We always got three up for the night watch." Which was perfectly true. Jack didn't happen to be one of them, but Spot didn't need to know that. "The others is down at the other end," he added.

Spot's eyes opened slowly, and Jack took a small involuntary breath as the pale grey gaze flicked in his direction. It was all too obvious that those eyes failed to focus on him, and yet he couldn't quite shake the feeling that Spot somehow just...knew, regardless.

Or maybe, Jack thought with a sigh, the low light and his own fatigue were conspiring to play games with his mind. He sure wouldn't put it past them.

"What makes you think I wasn't sleeping?" he asked, letting a hint of accusation slip into his voice.

Spot's shoulder lifted in a careless shrug. "You usually sleep sitting up, Jack?"

Jack stared at him. "What?"

"You was coughing earlier," Spot said.

"Oh."

"Don't tell me you'se sick."

"I ain't. Happy?"

"I'll think on it." Spot pushed himself soundlessly to a sitting position, cinching the blanket around his neck. Jack shifted to kneel a few paces closer and leaned forward, taking Spot's arm to draw him towards the wall.

"Don't pull," Spot snapped. He twisted free, reversed the grip by laying his hand on Jack's forearm instead. Carefully, his walking-stick tucked beneath his elbow so that it wouldn't drag, he clambered across the uneven brick floor until he settled next to Jack.

In the dim candlelight, Jack studied him, seeing the prominence of his collarbones where both blanket and thin, ragged shirt gaped open. There were bruises beneath the fabric, here and there.

"So," he whispered casually, "you ever gonna finish your supper, or are we just gonna leave it there in the middle of the tunnel 'til somebody trips over it?"

Spot turned sharply. "What the hell—" His eyes narrowed. "Don't be stupid, Jack, you didn't leave it there."

"You so sure about that?"

Spot froze for a brief instant, caught, then raised his chin. "Nobody leaves food lying around. Not even you."

Jack grinned. "If you say so."

"Don't you _patronize _me," Spot growled.

Jack dropped the light tone, fast. "Fine. I got enough people down here who ain't eating. Saves me a lot in food, but it loses me a lot in people. So you better have a damn good reason."

"I don't gotta give my reasons to you."

"You stay here, you do."

Spot's fingers slid over his walking-stick. "You'se pushin' it, Jack. It don't concern you."

"Maybe. But you keel over, I gotta get my boys to haul your carcass outta here, _that _concerns me."

The walking-stick whipped sideways, heavy brass knob halting only a few inches from Jack's chin before he could do more than blink. "A real shame," Spot sneered, "you never knows when to just shut the hell up. Tell me, this what you sound like, now that you ain't got the Mouth around to do your tal—"

Jack stiffened, but Spot had already broken off, lips compressing into a thin line. For a moment neither of them moved; then slowly, the cane withdrew.

"I shouldn't have said that." Despite the admission, Spot's voice was hard. "That was low."

"Even for you," Jack spat.

Spot's jaw clenched, but he stayed silent.

At Jack's other side David stirred, disturbed by the commotion, and Jack was obliged to shake the angry tension from his limbs before pulling the fallen blankets back up over David's shoulder. David quieted again, not quite having come awake.

"You'se damn lucky he didn't hear you," Jack bit out.

For the first time, Spot's face registered open surprise. "Hear me...You mean he's here?"

It was Jack's turn to be surprised. Had Spot really thought...? "You didn't know?"

"I...I figured I'd have heard _him_ by now. Hell, when don't I?"

Understanding dawned: Spot wouldn't have asked. Not when it meant acknowledging that he couldn't see for himself.

And at any other time, he would've been right.

Spot cocked his head slightly, as though listening. "That's who you got there with you, ain't it?" Spot said, very softly.

"Yeah. That's who I got." The confrontation pushed aside, Jack could feel the weariness seeping deeper into his bones, a tangible weight against his back. He rubbed a hand over his face, turned to look at Spot. "We don't call him the Mouth no more."


	35. XXXV

Almost there. Another three yards to reach the far side of Broadway, and his ears were ringing with the shouts and noise, the unceasing din of the panic-stricken city. They fought their way through the throng, traveling faster and more recklessly than they had earlier tonight, now that there was no longer a small body to protect, no longer a child's strides to accommodate.

He could hear David's strained breathing behind him. Knew that if he looked back, he'd find David's eyes still red and swollen, even though David had pulled himself together long ago, shoulders drawn painfully straight by urgency and duty.

They had a deathgrip on each other's shirts now. The turbulence of the crowds threatened at any moment to tear them apart. They both had the same destination, knew the routes to get there alone if they needed to, but the thought of being cast adrift in this chaos was too awful to contemplate.

Even from here, more than half a dozen blocks north of where they had last unsuccessfully attempted to cross Broadway, the column of smoke was still visible, though the dragon that had caused it no longer was. The dragons seemed to torch only sites here and there, animals hunting not for sport but only for enough to feed upon. There must have been enough on that single block of the huge street, packed end to end with people, to satisfy the beast. All those people, all that screaming...

But whether the dragons burned one block or ten, the fires would continue to spread. The dense forest of buildings—their timber dry from the heat of summer, their stairwells and elevator shafts waiting like open paths to channel the leaping flames upwards—would only stand for so long.

It would be the Great Fire of Thirty-Five all over again. The papes, despite Fire Chief Croker's protests about maintaining calm, had been swift to bring it up again and again these last few months: prophecies of doom spelled out in sensationalistic reminders. The city back then, younger, less teeming, had burned out of control from a single warehouse fire. Fifty buildings, the papes blared, had succumbed in quick succession in the first half hour. There were no high winds tonight as there had been back in that disastrous winter sixty-five years ago, but it was only a matter of time. It had been two weeks before the last of the extensive blaze had been finally stamped out, and it had taken the combined efforts of firemen from nearby and as far away as Philadelphia, plus the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to do so.

What chance did the city, brought to its knees by attacks, have now?

Near Jack, an elderly man let out a guttural cry as his cane slipped, sending him sprawling into the path of an oncoming carriage.

"Stop!" Jack shouted, knowing it was no use. There was no time to lift the man to his feet; Jack could only haul him from the middle of the lane one-handed as the pair of horses bore down on them with only inches to spare. A clattering sound and a glance out of the corner of his eye told him David had kicked the cane from under their hooves and snatched it up. Jack dragged the old man upright, grabbed the cane and pressed it into the man's frail grasp.

"Out of the way, rat!" the carriage-driver bellowed at Jack, drawing back his horse-whip. On any other day Jack would have effortlessly sprung back to the curb, out of reach. With the wall of people pressed close around them now, there was nowhere for him to dodge and he turned so the blow wouldn't fall on his face, bracing himself for the inevitable. The whip _cracked_—he heard the grunt of pain, not comprehending for a moment that the sound hadn't come from himself, and he looked up to see the tip of the rawhide lash wrapped around David's upraised forearm.

Impervious to the curses Jack hurled after him, the driver yanked the whip free as the carriage rumbled past and Jack wrenched his attention away from the man, turning to clamp both hands around the bloody welt on David's arm. "You..._dumbass_," Jack choked in disbelief. "What'd you go and do that for?"

David looked a little dazed, and Jack pushed and pulled and elbowed pedestrians aside until he got them both at last to the sidewalk, leaned David against the front marble column of the nearest building. When he loosened his grip, he could see crimson still oozing sluggishly through the torn blue-striped sleeve. He ripped the kerchief from around his neck, bound it tightly about the gash.

There was still dried blood on David's palms and fingers, from the stairwell, from the pipe. Jack wiped them on his own grey shirt, knowing he couldn't erase the stains entirely from David's hands, knowing he couldn't just leave them there.

"I had to," David said softly.

"I know." Jack caught him in a brief, fierce hug. "But you'se still a dumbass."

* * *

By the time they finally rounded the turn onto King from Varick Street, Jack's lungs were heaving painfully. Without warning, dark spots swam before his vision; he stumbled, throwing out a hand to catch himself against the side of the nearest building. The granite corner bit into his forearm, but he hardly felt it, staring down the length of King.

Somehow, despite all that they had seen tonight, he hadn't pictured this. Not this street, this one street where mother and father and safe haven waited at the end of their desperate journey uptown. Hadn't pictured the buildings on either side cloaked in such deep shadows, hadn't pictured crumbled masonry and what looked like smouldering beams. Next to him, David made a low, wordless sound of despair.

Two blocks. Just two blocks left to go on King, straight west, and maybe things would be all right there. There wasn't much fire to be seen, just the haze of smoke that seemed to hang over the entire city, pervasive and choking.

It was David who got them moving again. He pulled on Jack's arm, and together they staggered their way past deserted storefronts and lodgings. Here and there a structure had collapsed, the remnants of flames within, sometimes marked by long streaks of ash that trailed out onto the cobblestones. Every street-corner fire alarm box they passed had been thrown open in a vain call for help that had never come.

A pair of smashed wagons, obviously victims of a collision, blocked the middle of the roadway. Jack felt tell-tale stickiness on the sole of his boot, grabbed David out of the path of a spreading pool of blood. A lone horse lay unmoving between the shafts of one of the wagons; moonlight revealed a thick wooden spar driven deep into its ribcage.

A booted leg protruded from under one huge wheel. Jack dropped to one knee to peer beneath, reaching to pull the trapped man free. He quickly rose again, breathing hard, a hand over his mouth. Oh christ, there—there wasn't anything left to pull—

"_Hashkiveinu Adonai Elokeinu l'shalom,_" David was murmuring almost inaudibly, words spilling from his lips unlike any Jack had heard from him before. It sounded like a prayer, a supplication. "_V'ha'amideynu malkeinu..._" He faltered, voice cracking. "_Malkeinu..._"

Four women ran past, hysterical in their fear, heedless of the terrible viscous puddle. It splashed obscene patterns over the hems of their long skirts, glistening on the dark fabric. Jack pushed his partner behind him, blocking him from the spray out of sheer reflex.

The two of them slid around the wreck, picking up their pace, passing darkened doorways and ruins strewn on the cobbles. By now, he knew this street almost as well as he knew Duane. How many trips had he made here over the last year? How many slow walks, loitering because the day's selling had been good, because they wanted just one more minute to pretend the jingling coins in their pockets could be blown whole-hog on Western dime novels and trips to the theatre? How many races home with Les, because Esther had laughingly threatened not to leave them any dumplings if they were late for supper yet again?

They were racing home, now, and there wouldn't be supper waiting, and Les...

Oh god, there! The tenement block rose into sight out of the night, its walls still standing, no snapping flickering orange glow in its windows. Their boots pounded on the roadway. Four doorways to go, now, three doorways—

Abruptly, he was dragged to a halt. He turned to find David staring at him, petrified, white-faced.

"Dave, what is it?"

Nothing. David's fingers only tightened on Jack's sleeve.

Jack took a step forward. "You hurt—?"

David shook his head, then backed up a few paces, to the large pile of blackened debris they'd just passed on the sidewalk. They'd passed countless others just like it, had ignored them all, but Jack's breath caught in his throat as he recognized the shape as barely human. Half...a human.

David dropped to his knees beside it, shaking hands reaching out to turn it over.

Underneath, where it had been pressed to the ground, the figure wasn't burned. Jack lurched backwards at the familiar sight of the strong, straight nose, the full salt and pepper mustache, the firm chin.

The blackened shape had meant nothing to Jack, but the son knew. He knew. David was doubled over, his fist in his mouth, strangled cries sounding like they were being torn from his chest. Jack fell to the cobbles beside him, worked a thumb into the corner of David's jaw and pried his fist loose before he could rend it to shreds. Kept his own face averted from the body, from what was left of the body.

Think. He had to think. If Mayer was here, then—

He ran his palm helplessly over the back of David's neck, bent to his ear. "Stay here, David, _please_." Don't you dare go away, don't you dare. Don't you dare.

Jack leaped to his feet and sprinted for the tenement door.


	36. XXXVI

Jack leaped to his feet and sprinted for the tenement door.

It stood ajar, and from inside he could see a dim glow, though it didn't look like the angry light of fire. Unexpectedly, the door resisted opening more than halfway, blocked by something unseen.

"Sarah!" Jack shouted. "Mrs. Jacobs!"

There was no reply. He set his shoulder to the wood, threw himself against it, forced it open a few inches at a time.

Clouds of dust billowed out as he did so. The building's apparent external stability had been nothing but cruel illusion: inside, walls and floors had collapsed, crumbling plaster and splintered beams filling the space beyond the door. Incredibly, two kerosene lanterns that had been set down just inside the threshold were still standing intact, their fuel unspilled, their small illumination casting huge shadows in the gloom.

Jack blinked to adjust his sight, then rushed forward at the gleam of lantern light on blonde hair. It was there in the building's front hall that he found Esther, only her head and shoulders and one white hand visible, the rest of her buried beneath a collapsed wall of brick and wood that looked as immense and immovable as Gibraltar itself.

"Mrs. Jacobs—" he gasped. "Mrs. Jacobs—"

She rolled her head and groaned, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes. There was blood on her lips, on her chin, on the ivory lace of her collar.

"David!" Jack yelled. "David, hurry!"

He grabbed the edge of the lowest slab that was resting atop her, attempted to lift it. It didn't budge an inch. He shifted his target, pulled at pieces higher up, threw aside planks and loose bricks, trying to lighten the load from the top down.

"My...my little girl..." Esther moaned.

Startled, he followed her gaze to the left a few feet away, to what looked like the wreck of an oak dresser, fallen through from the floors above. He knocked the splintered pieces away, uncovered—

"_No!_" The cry had come from the doorway, David scrambling to his mother's side.

—uncovered chestnut tresses and Sarah's delicate face, looking so peaceful that a spike of relief stabbed through Jack, until he leaned over and saw what remained of the back of her head.

"Sarah," Esther sobbed. "Your sister..."

At the sound of movement behind him, Jack shot to his feet and turned just in time to catch David against his shoulder. "You don't gotta see this," Jack told him thickly, "you don't. Go to your ma."

David's body coiled as though he were about to take a swing at Jack, but Esther whimpered and David was beside her in an instant, working frenziedly to clear the crushing weight from above. Even with his and Jack's combined strength, the pile didn't seem to grow any lighter, didn't move at all.

Digging through the debris, searching for something long and sturdy enough to use as a lever, Jack could see Esther blink and her eyes focus on her son as though properly registering his presence for the first time.

"David...? Oh, thank God."

David touched her face with trembling fingers. "I'm here, Ma. Right here."

"Your father..." She coughed, the sound terribly weak, her beautiful features contorting. "Went...to look for you...Did you see him?"

David bowed his head; Jack could hear him struggling not to break down. "I...saw him, Ma."

"Oh thank God...thank God."

The broomstick Jack had wedged beneath the collapsed wall snapped in two under the strain, and he flung the pieces away, stooping to try to catch his breath. He and David both jumped as a sharp _bang _sounded from somewhere in the middle of the heap. David found it quickly, a glazed crockery jug that had abruptly given way like a balloon beneath the pressure, and he caught the thick shards before they could tumble down onto his mother's face.

"We can't do this by ourselves," David panted, rising to his feet. "I'll find help—"

"I'll do it. You stay here." Before the other boy could reply, Jack threw himself out the door, boots crunching on the broken glass in the walkway leading to the street—why hadn't he noticed that before?—and glanced around desperately at the emptiness of the block.

"We need some help here!" he shouted. His words echoed back hollowly from the surrounding buildings. He coughed dust from his lungs, raised his voice again, pitched it to carry down the length of the street as he'd done countless times before. "Women and children trapped! Women and children! Who'll help us? Hey, you—!"

He could just see the silhouette of a man disappearing around a corner half a block away. Jack took off after him. "Hey! Mister!"

His exhaustion was his undoing, chest burning, his muscles refusing to move any faster. There was no chance of catching up to the man, who even now was vanishing into the gloom. "Help us!" He staggered to a halt, leaning against the side of a butcher's shop, frustration welling bitterly in his throat.

"Hey, buddy, you need some help?"

He whirled to see two heavyset men running up behind him, concern on their faces. Jack could have flung his arms around them out of sheer gratitude. "'S a woman trapped—back there." He led the way back to the tenement, found David forcing chunks of stone and brick beneath the terrible mass to keep it from dropping any lower.

Together, their manpower now doubled, they heaved at it, cutting their hands on the sharp-edged slabs, boots gaining too little purchase on the gritty dust-coated floor. Esther cried out as large pieces of debris shifted dangerously. But no matter what direction they pulled or pushed, no matter how they gripped the beams and the crumbling masonry, they couldn't move it by more than a couple of inches. Not without creating small avalanches that threatened to bring down the entire wreckage, falling with deadly force onto the frail body below.

"No good," one of the men said at last, shaking his head in genuine sympathy. "Sorry, buddy."

"No!" David fell to his knees, shoving one more time against the collapsed wall.

But Esther's breaths were becoming weaker, the darkening blood bubbling at her lips evidence that her chest had likely already been crushed, that the sands of her life were running out right before their eyes.

"David," she said, "David...stop."

"No, Ma, no. I'll get you out, don't talk—"

"Promise me..."

The two words froze David where he was, and he turned to her, bending close. "Anything. Anything."

"You'd better get out yerselves," the taller of the men muttered to Jack, glancing at the straining ceiling overhead. Dragging an arm across his brow, Jack waved at them to go and they retreated through the door, footfalls fading away in the distance.

Jack took a step back, afraid that he wasn't giving David and his mother enough privacy, terrified that he was giving too much. Les and Mayer and Sarah, one right after another, oh christ—

"Promise me..." Esther lifted her hand slowly, so slowly, to David's face, and Jack could see the effort it cost her to speak at all. "You must look...after Les..."

David stared at her, horror rising in his eyes.

Esther coughed again, her voice almost too soft to hear, turning pleading. "P-promise me...David..."

Her son pressed her hand to his tear-damp cheek, fingers shaking. "I promise, Ma, I promise." His voice broke. "Stay with me, please, I promise."

But the look in her blue eyes was growing distant. She turned her face upwards with a little sigh, her lips parting one last time.

"...Mayer..."

"No!" David cried. "No, I promise—Mama—I'm so sorry, I promise, I promise..."

Jack turned away, forehead and clenched fists resting against the wall that had been behind him. He squeezed his eyes shut, ignoring the moisture that wanted to seep from them; ground his knuckles savagely against the rough plaster until the sharp pain of torn skin gave him something to focus on, clearing his head of everything else.

"I promise." David's pleas were fading to whispers, growing fainter. "I promise..."

By the time Jack pushed himself away from the wall and went to gather David up, he had fallen completely silent.


	37. XXXVII

Jack's voice trailed away. Beside him, Spot said nothing, let him tell the entire story uninterrupted.

He hadn't meant to tell all that. Not even the rest of his own boys knew the whole thing, just bits and pieces. He'd kept one hand lightly on David's chest, monitoring his breathing even as his own whispers had spilled into Spot's ear, ready to bite his tongue at the first sign of David waking up. But David hadn't, and once Jack had started the telling he'd found himself unable to stop, words tumbling from somewhere deep within because he'd never had anyone to share them with since that night had happened. Not even David. Least of all David.

Now, at the conclusion, he took breaths as shallowly as he could, all too aware that the hitching in his throat would give him away. Spot had probably guessed anyway, because Spot was no idiot, but as long as he didn't say anything and Jack didn't either, they could both pretend that the quiver in Jack's voice was only due to the chill air of the tunnel. There in the candle-lit darkness, Jack hated himself for being secretly, guiltily grateful that Spot couldn't see him, couldn't see the wetness brimming hotly in his eyes. He pressed his free hand over them, let the cotton bandaging around his wrist surreptitiously wick up the unshed tears.

"They was the only ones in there?" Spot asked at last.

"Just them. They was...right near the door, like they knew they had to leave." He sighed. "Prob'ly waiting for his pops to come back first."

Spot only nodded, the look on his face unreadable.

"He ain't said a word since. 'Cept sometimes when he's sleepin', and then he'll sound just like hisself, but when he's awake..."

Beneath the flat of his hand, he could feel David's heartbeat; let it travel up through palm and wrist and arm until it seemed to settle in his own chest, until he almost thought he could slow right down to match its steady rhythm. It was enough to relax his shoulders, to pull him back towards the fatigue he'd managed to stave off for most of tonight. And last night as well: when you were meeting with the water barons the next morning, waiting for dawn and your turn to run through the gauntlet of the city there and back, you didn't get much sleep the night before. It was just the way things were.

Tonight, with newcomers in their midst, sleep was the furthest thing from his mind, even as his body craved it like nothing else.

He shook himself, leaned close to Spot again. "You breathe one word of this to anybody, including him, and I'll soak ya. I'll soak ya, I swear."

"You'd never land one finger on me," Spot said contemptuously, but then some of the hardness faded from his expression, to be replaced by something more somber. "There ain't nobody that needs to know."

He meant it, Jack knew. You could never take anything Spot Conlon did for granted, but if you said that he didn't understand honor, you'd be dead wrong.

Spot stretched forward and slid, with an unhurried air that only the dark circles beneath his eyes and the thinness of his frame belied, to the brick floor. "So. You planning to sleep, or just wait 'til you pass out?"

"I'se on watch," Jack said.

"You ain't."

Jack glared at him. "Yeah?"

"You ain't on watch," Spot stated. His eyes drifted shut. "Not the _real_ watch. You'd never let yourself get so wrapped up in a story if you was. Not so much that you talks yourself hoarse and you'se all..." He paused, meaningfully. "Distracted."

"That's up to _me_," Jack warned.

"You let me worry about me own boys," Spot continued, as if Jack hadn't spoken at all. "Long as trouble don't start with none of yours."

Jack watched him, the apparent ease with which he made the assertion. Spot's boys looked like they were plenty loyal to him, but...a leader who'd been run out once could be run out again. "You would've done the same."

Spot only shrugged.

"And if there's trouble," Jack added, "it ain't gonna start with none of mine, neither."

"I'se holding you to that," Spot said.

* * *

Jack crossed his arms, surveyed the quartet of nervous faces in front of him. "So, what's this about?"

There was a bit of shuffling, then three pairs of eyes turned to Blink. Blink gulped. "'S about Spot."

Why, Jack thought wearily, did everything have to happen first thing in the morning? He'd finally given in to sleep near the end of the night, but now, only a couple of hours later, he only felt more groggy than he'd been before. He resisted the urge to scrub both hands over his face, knowing it would just make his burning eyes feel even worse.

"Spot," Jack repeated.

"Yeah. We..." Blink traded looks with Mush, Specs, and Dutchy. "...think that maybe he's, you know, on the run."

The last few words were accompanied by quick glances towards the sleeping area, as if even at this distance, Spot might still overhear and descend upon them like wrath from heaven.

Jack fixed them all with a stern look. "That's what yous think?"

There was some mumbling, and then Specs said firmly, "Yeah."

Jack nodded. "Somebody go get Race."

Mush started to step away, only to be pulled back by Blink, who muttered, "Not you. You go over there with that face and everyone'll know something's up." Mush started to frown until Blink swatted him gently on the cheek, and it was Specs who went to go fetch Race from where the latter was just finishing breakfast. Jack arched his back, trying to ease the stiffness from an entire night spent sitting up. At least Spot seemed to be eating a little this morning—very reluctantly, but it was something.

"What's going on here?" Race said as he and Specs joined them.

Ordinarily, the question would have been directed at Jack; Jack ignored the fact that it wasn't. "We ain't the only ones think Spot's runnin'."

He had Race's attention now. "Don't tell me. These bums?"

"These bums," Jack said. "And if _they_ can think of it..."

"Hey—" Blink protested.

"...then prob'ly some of the others, too," Race finished for him.

"He's gotta know we'd have guessed it sooner or later," Jack said. "All the same, I don't want him hearin' from somebody's big mouth first. They'se bound to get their heads bashed in."

"It ain't just that," Dutchy said. "What if somebody's after him? And they track him down to us—"

"Fuck." Jack spun on his heel and made straight for Spot.

The latter was already on his feet, hand clasped tightly around Garrs' elbow as the taller boy guided them quickly along the tunnel, headed in their direction. Jack's first thought was that they'd somehow heard after all—but that was impossible, and anyway they hardly seemed focused on the small group clustered around Jack.

Jack stepped up to them. "Spot—"

Garrs' hand blurred and Jack staggered back, pain flaring in the left side of his face where knuckles like steel bearings had struck it. Shouts erupted around them and Jack only barely managed to pull his return punch when he recalled that Garrs was the only thing holding Spot up. Blink and Mush sprang in front of Garrs, blocking his path.

Jack lunged forward and seized Garrs' arm before the other could complete his swing at Mush; twisted his arm up behind his back and hissed, "What the hell do you think—"

"Let him go!" Spot's voice rang out over the din. One movement of his wrist flicked the middle of the cane into his hand and he held it balanced, ready to strike in any direction. "Jacky, he shouldn't have hit ya, but _let him go._"

Jack took in the pallor of Spot's skin, the faint sheen of cold perspiration, the way he spoke between clenched teeth. "You tell Snoddy up top I said to let you out," Jack snapped. "Hit anybody else on your way there and you ain't getting through." He immediately released Garrs, signaled to Blink and Mush to allow them to pass.

By the time Jack got aboveground a few minutes later, squinting against the early-morning light, he found Spot kneeling beside the large tree that stood some distance away on the lawn. It had once obstructed the view, from the grating, of the Courthouse to the northeast. Now, with its lofty height nearly halved, its blackened bark gave mute testimony to the fires that had ravaged it and its kin.

"Boss," Garrs called quietly, not taking his eyes off Jack.

Jack returned the glare, deliberately stepped on a patch of scorched grass, letting the resultant crackle give his approach away. Spot's head came up but he didn't rise, only wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, looking furious with himself.

"I'll bet that's Jacky-boy come to visit."

"Yeah." Jack stopped a couple of feet behind him. "So your boys ain't gonna start trouble, huh?"

Spot had the grace to look unhappy about it, shoulders slumping. "You ain't wrong to say that." He half-turned, leaning against the charred, flaking trunk. "Garrs."

"Yeah, boss."

"That's the second time, and we ain't even been here a day."

Garrs made a noise low in the back of his throat, like a growl. "I hadda get us outta there—"

The aggravation in his tone had no effect on Spot. "I know that. There was other ways."

"Sorry, boss."

"Do it again, and I'll throw you out myself. Hear me?"

It was a threat not to be taken lightly: your chances of survival dropped like a rock when you were out on your own. Jack watched it register on Garrs' face, ready for the explosion of resentment from the larger boy.

To his surprise, Garrs merely hesitated for a moment before backing down. "I hear you."

"So do I," Jack said, pinning him with a hard look. When Garrs finally dropped his gaze, Jack switched topics, lightning-fast. "You sick, Spot?"

Spot's back tensed, but his reply was flat. "No."

"Uh-huh. So you'se just pukin' your guts out for fun?"

"I—" Spot said, but he would not get a chance to finish. Garrs charged past Jack to grab his leader's arm, yanking him unceremoniously to his feet.

An instant later, the sun went out.


	38. XXXVIII

It came from behind Newspaper Row, backlit by the rising sun, a giant shadow in the pale morning sky. Unbelievably fast, the dragon swept down over the tops of ruined skyscrapers—

—headed straight for City Hall Park.

Garrs was already turning, dragging Spot by the arm. The up-ended carriage that marked the tunnel's entrance stood twenty yards away. They sprinted flat-out for it, the three of them, human speed against winged power.

Jack was one step behind the other two. From beneath the carriage's doorway, he could see the glinting of light off the long barrels of the Parker shotgun. Snoddy, with Race just visible beside him, leaned halfway out of the opening, elbows braced against the ground as he tracked the monster's approach. A twelve-gauge had no hope of doing damage to a dragon, but at the very least it might provide a distraction. So swift was its flight that Snoddy had to fling himself up onto one knee as the angle grew sharply steeper.

The lawn was slick with dew at this hour; their bootheels gouged half-moon depressions in it as they ran across the treacherously slippery, yielding surface. They'd already made it more than halfway: seven yards still to go.

"It's slowing down!" Snoddy cried in warning.

Chest heaving, Jack abruptly checked his step. A dragon pulling up short in the sky could only mean one thing. Jack snapped his head around at the tell-tale sound from above, that distinctive rattling hiss of indrawn air, as the beast readied itself for a jet of fire.

Its aim would be dead on if they didn't change course. This close, nearly on top of them, there was no possible way it could miss. He saw Garrs shift his grip, clamping one fist around the back of Spot's collar and the other on his waistband. Without breaking stride, the full momentum of the sprint behind him, Garrs lifted Spot right off his feet and hurled him the remaining four yards straight into the doorway of the carriage.

Spot's yell of protest was drowned out by flames slamming into the ground an instant after. Jack and Garrs sprang away to either side; Jack hit the ground hard and rolled, his wrapped wrist pulled tight against his chest, the blaze narrowly missing him.

He pushed himself up to one elbow. "Snoddy!" He had no idea if Spot had made it inside, or if Garrs had escaped the blast; the rush of fire completely blocked his view. He didn't know if he'd even be heard. But the carriage could be torched in a heartbeat, and the longer anyone remained up at the grating—"Get down to the tunnel! Snoddy! Get down—"

The thunderous _whump _of the dragon's wings cut him off as it wheeled around for a second attack. Dragons rarely flamed while in flight anymore, unlike when they'd first invaded the city; accuracy had become crucial as their targets had steadily shrunk from vast crowds in the streets to individual prey. This one should have landed by now in order to get a better shot at him. Why it hadn't done so was a mystery to Jack, but he didn't stop to question his unexpected good fortune, only leaped upright again to run before the beast could complete its turn.

The burning swath of sparse grass was beginning to die down a little, and over the tops of the orange flames he could just see the carriage, its broken wheels alight but its doorway as yet untouched. And Garrs on the far side of the blazing grass, apparently uninjured, starting to return for him.

Jack didn't allow himself to even hesitate, only waved the other boy urgently back to the carriage instead. The choice was no choice at all. Either he or Garrs would have to make the sacrificial run, and Garrs was closer to home, or maybe Garrs didn't know what had to be done, or maybe—just—oh _hell_—

He whirled and, not waiting to see if Garrs complied, raced back the way he'd come. Straight for the ruins of City Hall, a couple of hundred feet away, impossibly far. He could try for the heavy, boxy shape of the Post Office to the south, but it was no closer and anyway it was too late now, he'd reacted on instinct and there was no time for second-guessing.

He could easily have skirted around the slowly-dying fire and made it inside the grating himself, right on Garrs' heels, but that was out of the question. Nor were the buildings on the far side of Broadway, so much closer than City Hall, even an option; they stood almost directly above the tunnel itself. Dragons had an uncanny ability to track their prey back to its source, the way a man watches and follows an ant back to its anthill in order to crush the entire colony. It was why the city's armories were no more, why the Navy Yard lay in ruins. As they each had sent out their men and weapons, cannon and horses and cruisers, so had the dragons eventually pinpointed their location. And systematically destroyed them all, one by one.

He could still remember the day he'd seen the armory of the Seventh Regiment fall. Soldiers and horses had swarmed the pavement, out of sight to Jack from where he crouched three blocks away, but their frantic shouts and screams had been plainly audible. Riflemen had fired and reloaded and fired again from loopholes in the battlement walls; Gatling guns mounted high in the slender central belltower had spat their rapid .30-caliber ammunition into the skies above Park Avenue. But the numbers, the efforts, were in vain; the dragons had brought it down within half an hour, the belltower crashing to the wide street below. The flames had roared brighter than even the armory's deep red exterior; and when a dragon had seized a streetcar and used it as a battering ram against the fire-weakened structure, not even the two-foot-thick walls, so boasted of by the papes, had been of any help at all.

The dragon made another pass over the tunnel opening, swooping so low Jack thought for a single frozen moment that the beast was going to try to physically ram it or snatch someone up whole. There was the sharp _crack _of the twelve-gauge going off and the dragon soared upwards again, sudden sweep of its wings fanning the flames even higher.

Jack waved his arms wildly. "_Here!_" It came out less like a word than a scream. "Here, damn you!"

Without any loss of speed, the dragon _twisted _in the sky and came straight at him. Jack staggered back two steps before he managed to turn, running for all he was worth.

The lawn of the park, thank god, was not entirely bare; people had at one time attempted to build provisional shelters here, huddled beneath the cover of the cannons that had been brought in to protect the civic square. But those hastily-erected shacks and tents had been abandoned as it had quickly become apparent that the might of cannon-shot could only do so much. Frames and sheets of metal and wood and broken vehicles were still scattered haphazardly about. Jack zig-zagged from one dubious harbor to another, hardly daring to pause, fighting to get to the gleaming whiteness of the Hall.

He heard the long drawn-out rasp of air from overhead, and threw himself behind a large bent sheet of corrugated metal that had been jammed edge-first into the soil. Scarcely had he gotten his head down when the thick metal wavered violently beneath the onslaught, flames blowing past him over the top and to either side, only barely deflected by the make-shift shield. They fell in a deadly rain to scribe a shallow curve of unharmed grass at the edge of the shade cast by the sheet, with his body just barely inside. He recoiled as the metal surface swiftly became too hot to touch.

A spark caught his sleeve on his upper arm. Gasping, he rammed his shoulder against the ground, letting the damp earth snuff out the small flicker before it could truly burn. A huge shadow flashed above him as the dragon overshot his position, and he was up and running again, springing heedlessly through the fiery lawn and scrambling, at last, up the sloping pile of rubble that spilled from the punctured side of City Hall.


	39. XXXIX

The arched top of the tall window was still intact, but below that, the glass and the stone frame surrounding it had been torn out of the wall like an eye from its socket. The right half of it had been boarded up, hastily, by the looks of it; the other half remained open. Jack clambered up the shifting pile of debris that lay beneath it until he could just reach the lip of the opening. He winced as grabbing the edge put too much pressure on his left wrist, then took one glance back over his shoulder at the oncoming beast. Sprain instantly forgotten, he pushed himself up and over to tumble onto the dusty wood-paneled floor.

He found himself trapped in a long narrow space with a steep roof along the right side, as though someone had tipped over a bookshelf or large conference-table to form a triangular tunnel against one wall. There wasn't enough room for him to even straighten up. He threw his weight against it, trying to tilt it back the other way, but it wouldn't budge. Giving up, he scrambled to reach the far end, knowing it was only a matter of time before—

Behind him came the deep, rattling intake of air again, and the end of the constriction was still several feet away. He'd never make it, didn't even have enough momentum to throw himself forward into the clear. He flattened himself against the right side, knowing it was no use. The flames would be funneled straight down the cramped passageway, straight down to him.

Then his hand, sliding along the slanted wall ahead of him, pressed on something that gave, toppling aside to reveal a space beyond. Without stopping to think, or even wonder if the opening was large enough for him, he hooked his fingers around the edge of it and pulled himself forward as hard as he could.

His left elbow caught against something as he squeezed through the gap, and he yanked himself free desperately just as fire surged along the passageway where he'd been. The jolt of pain kicked in a heartbeat later, so that for a moment he thought he'd been burned, until he put his hand to his elbow in the darkness and found torn fabric and the wetness of badly-scraped skin.

This new space was wider than the first, although nearly a third of its width was taken up by the barricade he'd just come through—a massive, half-collapsed oak table with a loose center leaf—and it was unobstructed up to the high ceiling. He ducked as the building shook like thunder; the dragon must have landed on the roof. On the other side of the table, the fire was beginning to spread. The boarded-up half of the window behind him was already a mass of flames. With his palm pressed to his injured elbow to stem the bleeding, he staggered to his feet away from it, towards a faint rectangular outline of light ahead, almost lost in the ruddy glow.

It was a door, slightly ajar. The patterned paper on the wall and corner just to the left of it, directly where that narrow crawlspace had led, had ignited: orange streaks ran up the wall, greedily flowing outwards. He shied back instinctively, but there was nowhere else to go. With fire behind and beside him, a solid wall at his right, the only way he was getting out of this room alive was through that door.

Flakes of burning wallpaper drifted down next to it, swirling back upwards again in the convective currents. He backed up a step from the stinging flurry, was driven forward again by the heat from the window at his back. Sucking in a breath of the thickening air, he sprang for the door, grabbed the knob and rammed his shoulder against the panel. He nearly cried out as it refused to move, until he got ahold of himself and yanked on the door instead.

It swung inward so abruptly he nearly lost his balance. Beyond it was a smaller room that opened up, after a ninety-degree turn, into a broad hallway flooded with sudden daylight. To his left the hall terminated in a large window, a twin to the one he'd entered by. He headed away from it, slowing only when the light faded considerably as he moved deeper into the building. Leaning for a moment against a sagging filing cabinet that lay on its side, his ran his eyes over the new scene as he tried to determine where to go from here.

The interior of the building was hardly recognizable now as a grand civic space—it had turned into an impromptu fort the second day of the invasion as survivors of the political body had limped their way here from the rest of the ravaged city. As the growing number of refugees had swelled the building to full capacity, extra provisions and munitions had been brought in, plus the necessities of daily work and living: tables and chairs and mattresses, blankets and medical supplies and tools for repair. They'd lasted here all of two and a half weeks before giving up and retreating to the Courthouse behind City Hall instead. It was larger, and not so much out in the open.

But it hadn't been fire-proof, either.

Hastily-abandoned mounds of overturned furniture and assorted detritus, torn oil portraits and sheets upon sheets of futile plans and lists clogged the rooms and even the halls now. The boys had made a few furtive trips in here in the early days, retrieving silk rugs and velvet curtains to make up the most expensive bedding they'd ever had in their lives, but they hadn't been able to keep that up for long. City Hall was too well-known a site to other scavengers, and the lawns of the Park provided too little cover.

The window behind him at the end of the hallway was now nearly eighty feet away. He was too far along the corridor to see the patchy green of the lawn below, but he could still catch a glimpse of the greys and tans of the buildings across Broadway. What he mostly saw, though, was the smoke that continued to rise over the park, thick and obscuring.

Somewhere beneath all that was their tunnel.

He didn't want to stay in here, in this empty, echoing stone edifice. He wanted out, wanted to know if his boys had made it through all right. But the dragon on the roof would surely catch him if he tried to make a run for it now.

There was a faint crackling, growing steadily louder, as the fire he'd just escaped consumed more of its surroundings. A new column of black smoke billowed past the window, startlingly close. He swallowed hard. Heading upstairs would trap him with no way out; heading down to the basement would do the same, were the upper levels to collapse with the dragon's weight on top. He'd have to find a spot to lie low in, out of reach of both the dragon and the intensifying fire, until a chink appeared in either one threat or the other and he could make a break for home.

His head snapped up at the sound of ponderous movement from above. It was a deep, rhythmic scraping as the dragon's claws and wingtips dragged across the copper-clad roof. But there was a break in the rhythm, a strange heaviness to its gait.

Its wings were undamaged. Jack knew that, had stared straight into its maw as it had sped towards him with a single powerful downstroke. It had to be one of its hind legs, injured somehow; that would explain why it hadn't landed in order to flame. And about the only thing that could injure a dragon was another one.

It was moving towards the middle of the building, where Jack had intended to go. But there was nothing to be done about it; the west wing, where he currently stood, would soon be filling up with smoke. It was already rolling into the hallway behind him, dimming what light came in through the window. He quickly made his way down the corridor, alert to the continuing rumble from above, skirting broken chairs and stepping over smashed crystals where chandeliers had fallen. Anything still intact in here had been carried off long ago.

The entrance to the lobby made him stop short. Here, twin rows of arches lined both sides of the corridor. To his right was where the wide main entrance had once stood. It had collapsed inward, charred by a fireball in the first few days of occupation, and the line of interior arches on that side had become the new front door, nearly all of which had been hurriedly bricked up save for a small opening tucked into the corner all the way on the east side, far from where he stood.

To his left was the rotunda. In the high circular chamber, more than forty feet across, the graceful double staircase still wound magnificently from the first floor to the second, and the morning sun that shone through the round skylight at the apex of the dome warmed the cold marble walls to an ivory hue. All of this was lost on him. The only thing he cared about was that here, there was abruptly no buffer of another floor or two between himself and his pursuer; only the roof separated them. That the roof remained three stories above him made no difference; to a winged creature like the dragon, it was only so much empty space.

The noise from overhead had stopped. Jack crouched down, straining to hear. It was the fierce popping of the fire back there that dominated now, getting closer. His elbow had nearly stopped bleeding, but when he briefly put his hand against the wall to brace himself he still left a red handprint on the white marble. He waited for five minutes, breath held as much as possible, nothing coming to his ears but the sound of the fire and his own pounding heart.

He hadn't heard it take off. Surely he would have; when dragons took to the sky their hindclaws, momentarily supporting their colossal weight, left deep scars. On the copper roof the screech of claws against metal would have been unmistakable.

But maybe, just maybe, it was safe to move. Keeping his back pressed against the masonry of the front entrance, staying as far from the rotunda as possible, he began to slide his way across the lobby. Inch by careful inch, he made it a quarter of the distance, and then a third.

And that was when he discovered the dragon had been listening just as closely as he.


	40. XL

It crashed through the round skylight at the top of the the ornamented dome, glass shards falling to _ping_ and smash on the patterned tile floor three stories below. Jack heard their destruction only distantly. The dragon had thrust the entirety of its head and long neck into the aperture, and its glittering orange-yellow eyes were fixed directly on him.

Before he could do more than register its presence it let loose a torrent of flame, and it took all of Jack's willpower to jump not back but _toward _it. There was no cover along the featureless, bricked-up wall of arches he had been standing against; his only hope was to throw himself behind the leg of one of the open archways across the lobby corridor instead.

He pressed his body against the white stone pillar as fire rushed by on both sides to splash against the brick wall beyond. This close, the heat was awful, and only the coldness of the stone made it even bearable at all. He shut his eyes and dug his fingers into the carved horizontal grooves that ran partway across the face of the pillar, forcing himself to stay still and wait it out.

By the time the assault ceased, sweat was rolling freely down his back, and he'd opened up the scrapes on his elbow again. Blood dripped sluggishly from his sleeve to form little crimson dots on the floor. There was a snuffling sound from the rotunda, then a hissing, like an entire nest of vipers. Jack knew without looking that its nostrils were flared, searching for the distinctive scent of organic ashes that would be the dragon's meal. He wadded up his sleeve and pushed it hard against his wounded elbow, wondering vaguely if it would be attracted to the smell of blood as well.

Fortunately, the jet of fire had not caught, other than a few stray bits of lumber, quickly dying away. There was nothing substantial in the marble lobby that would burn.

Nothing except for him.

The already dim light, blocked by the dragon's bulk, darkened even further. Leaning out no more than an inch, he dared a quick glimpse at the room beyond. The dragon had pushed itself in up to its shoulders. Past that its wings would not fit through the opening, unless it backed out and forcefully cracked the top of the dome. But it didn't need to: its triangular head hung down on its flexible neck like a python gliding from a tree branch. It could not span the hundred-foot height of the rotunda, of course; its head extended just past the tops of the columns that ringed the second floor, but it could rotate in any direction, take aim from any angle.

He was trapped. Good and trapped, behind a pillar barely wide enough to shield him, and with open space on either side.

There was no chance of making a run for it, not even to the next pillar. The dragon knew exactly where he was, alert to the slightest shift in his position, and it could not possibly miss. But if he couldn't move, then maybe he could wait it out. Keeping still...shouldn't be so hard. The dragon might give up eventually, might even be distracted by prey elsewhere. A bird, a dog, something. Anything.

Only...only not his boys, please god. He hoped like hell that they were staying right where they should, deep down in the quiet earth, like they'd done before every time a dragon had passed overhead.

One last hiss, and flames struck the other side of the pillar again. It lit up the interior of the lobby like a lightning flash that went on and on forever. Pulling his shirt tightly about him in case a stray flicker found the fabric, he breathed as shallowly as he could, trying not to take in too much of the overheated air.

Finally, it stopped—and he now he knew. He could not simply stay here in hopes that the dragon would at some time withdraw. The marble pillar, thick as it was, was growing alarmingly warm. Mausoleum-cold when he'd first laid his hand on it, now it was well above room temperature.

The dragon didn't need to touch him with fire to burn him. It would only be a matter of time.

The thought sent him staring wildly around at the lobby. There had to be some way out, something he could use. Had he been closer to the east side of the room, he would have taken his chances and bolted out the reshaped front door. He wouldn't have been in the least bit safe; the dragon would track him easily, but it would have had to move itself in order to find him again outside. And while it was doing so, he might just might be able to slip back in again, and make a dash for the east wing.

No matter. He wasn't close enough to the door to try. He blinked, focused instead on the geometric carvings adorning the arches. Most of the middle of the pillar's face was smooth, a wide vertical ridge rising slightly above the center of the face, but that ridge had horizontal grooves running to either side of it, almost like the rungs of a ladder. Heart pounding, he looked higher. About ten feet up, where the straight supports ended and the semi-circular arches began, the pillar flared out slightly into a small lip. And though the wall above the arches was flat, curving along the top of each arch's opening was a thin ledge, no more than an inch wide at the most. If he couldn't run across the floor, maybe there was another way. It would take some hard climbing, and hanging on for dear life, but he just might be able to follow the arch up and over from this pillar to the next. And maybe to the next...

Unable to get a running start, he jumped to grab a handhold as high as he was able, catching the pillar two feet below the lip with his fingertips, digging his boots into the grooves. He pushed up with his legs just as the dragon, reacting to the sound, spat fire in his direction again. In the past it would have been an almost easy climb, at least to the top of the pillar, but not today. His left arm would not take any weight; his right protested the sudden strain. Sweat slicked his grip as he pulled himself higher, making it another four feet. Clamping his knees against the center ridge, inching his hand upwards, he reached sideways for the shallow ledge just at the start of the curve—

—and let go to land hard on the tiled floor as the dragon shifted its aim just a few degrees so that the stream of fire curled ceilingwards, flames rising as flames always do, to scorch the top of the archway he'd been reaching for. He only barely kept his feet as he hit the ground in the same spot he'd started his climb, only barely kept from tumbling out from behind the pillar's protection.

The dragon knew. It could pinpoint his location just by listening. Any move he made, it would always be one step ahead of him.

His legs were shaking with exhaustion. He slid down to one knee as the flames shut off again, the marble now uncomfortably hot to the touch. The line of the arch overhead, the one he'd intended to follow, was now blackened with smoke. With something perilously close to disinterest, he noted that he'd left red smudges all the way up the pillar, showing stark against the white surface.

They were at an impasse, man and beast. The former could not escape while he was being so closely watched; the latter would not give up its prime position to smash open the dome for better access, lest its prey flee while it was doing so. And Jack had no misconceptions about which of them would be the first to succumb.

Another burst of flame, and he could only huddle behind the stone pillar until it was over, even as the heat from it stung his hands and cheek. The brick wall opposite him reflected back the too-thick air; it was like being inside an oven.

He'd never felt more alone in his life, not even in solitary at the Refuge. What was happening back at the tunnel? Were the boys tempted to come out and look for him, did they think he was dead? Were they licking their own wounds? His mind flashed back to the last glimpse he'd had of home—the upturned carriage's wheels alight, the frame beginning to give way. What if someone had been caught in the blast?

Mouth thinning, he pushed himself to his feet. He was not going to sit here and simply wait to die. Not while he didn't know what had become of his boys.

He stripped off his button-down shirt, now a sodden mess, splotched with blood and sweat. Gritting his teeth, he scrubbed the fabric harshly over his injured elbow, breaking the tenuous scabs that had formed. Fresh blood welled up quickly, and he soaked up as much of it as he could with the shirt, letting it seep into the weave of the cloth. He rolled it up—it was much too small—and pulled off his undershirt as well. The coolness was a welcome relief, but he didn't waste time savoring it, just bundled the two garments into a compact ball.

Still too light. A loose brick lay on the floor within reach; it was too hot to pick up with his bare hands, and he scooped it up into the center of the shirts instead. Even better. He knotted both sets of sleeves tightly, ensuring that the bundle would not come apart.

Then he drew back his arm, steadied himself, and pitched it into the rotunda as far as it could go.

He didn't hear it land, cushioned as it was by multiple layers of fabric, but the blaze of light that followed after it was impossible not to see. The sudden movement, the smell of fresh blood and worn fabric, the heat of the brick like a warm body inside, had been an irresistible distraction to the beast. It would not work for more than a moment, but a moment was all he needed.

He was already sprinting down the corridor, focused on nothing but making it to the end of the lobby. Just as he passed the final pillar he could see from the corner of his eye the dragon's head swinging back toward him, the fire from its jaws arcing across the floor like a river of flame. But he was already at the edge of the east wing, and with one final lunge he passed beyond the rotunda, fire snapping at his heels.

This part of the building was in a worse state that the other; old soot covered most of the surfaces, and charred remnants of cabinets and tables lay scattered about. The entire structure shuddered ominously as the dragon shrieked, battering the dome with its weight and claws, tearing a way in.

There were holes in the ceiling from past attacks where beams had given way, though thankfully no daylight shone through them. Jack plunged farther into the east wing, trying to find a more stable area as the walls shook all around him.

If it was coming in through the roof...he had to get to a window. It was the only way to keep an escape route close at hand, in case he got trapped again. There was one at the distant end of the hall, but it lacked any nearby cover.

The closest room was too clogged with debris to reach the windows easily. He backed out, tried the next. It was smaller, filled with the remains of army supply crates, long since broken into. They covered the floor but it was possible to climb over them. This looked like an outer office, with no windows, but there was a door in the far wall and he knew from the exterior of the building that there had to be windows beyond it.

He had just started to pick his way across the splintered crates when a deafening boom rocked the building like an explosive charge. He shot a glance back to see that out in the hallway behind him, the light had become noticeably brighter. A chunk of the dome must have fallen in beneath the dragon's assault.

Above him, splintered beams groaned in warning. He could do no more than take one step before the whole mass collapsed on him, punching the breath from his lungs and turning the room to black.

He tried to move, and could not; when his vision cleared, he discovered through the swirls of dust that filled the office that he was lying on his left side. A huge wooden beam, nearly two feet thick, pinned him to the floor.

He pushed at it, but was not at a good angle to get leverage with either his right hand or his left, succeeded only in awakening a hot, sharp pain in his ribcage. It hurt to inhale fully; it felt like the breath was being slowly crushed out of him. Panicking, he shoved at the beam again, straining until the bruised rib sent another punishing stab through his chest.

And then he heard it: the long dragging scrape of claws against the roof, the sound of powerful wings beating the air. Stunned, he lay still, certain he had heard wrong. The dragon was _leaving_—but why?

The tremendous force it had take to damage the dome—it had probably been too much for a dragon with an injured leg. He hoped it was as simple as that, but all the same he tried to listen for anything more, anything that might indicate another reason instead, that it had been drawn—or even chased—away. After all, if its hind leg really had been injured by another dragon, one might be coming in even now to take its place. But there was a buzzing in his ears that was growing steadily louder, and a midnight haze was starting to swim at the edges of his vision.

He'd been so close...so close. He'd tried so hard to get back home, and now he was abandoning his boys all for this final mis-step, this last twist of fate. He made an attempt to push at the beam again, stifled a sob when he hardly had the strength to even lift his arm.

Someone...someone was going to have to take charge. Snoddy, or...Race. It would probably be Race, but if it was him, then David...oh god, he hadn't thought about...then David...

And then, just like that, everything slipped away into darkness.

* * *

_Here ends Book One of "The Dusk Descending."_


	41. The story continues

_Thanks to all of you who've stuck with me this far._

_The story continues in "The Dusk Descending, Book Two," posted separately.  
_


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